Bring It
by Fetch Me More Chocolate
Summary: Stupid president, with his stupid hair, and stupid tie, and stupid…stupidness! Blondie may think he can beat me but I'll show him! Even if he is mister perfect, feeding kittens, and...well actually it is really nice when he gets lab equipment down for me, and I suppose it's okay when he helps me carry the heavy pots in gardening, and…okay his hairs not that stupid…but the tie is.
1. Chapter 1

So I kind of wrote this on a whim while waiting for the next MCL chapter to be released. But then it got really long, and started to develop an actual plot, and then there were some ideas for character development, and all the while Nathaniel was in the back of my head being all awkward and adorable. And well, I decided; what the hay, maybe other people need something to tie them over between chapters as well.

I'm not overly confident in my writing abilities yet, honestly I don't think I ever will be. But I do enjoy it and the only way to get better at something is to actually do it. I'm just blessed to live in a day and age in which I can get feedback. So feel free to share any comments, criticism, concerns, questions, passing thoughts, ramblings, non-sequiturs, and opinions on the Hogwarts houses and where you feel the MCL characters should be sorted.

Be warned, there is mild swearing. So far I have no intention of dropping any f-bombs but Castiel is in this so…okay yeah there's gunna be some cussing.

Nothing overly explicit, aside from some slight adult humor. Anything more and I will put a warning at the beginning of the chapter.

Disclaimer: Considering that MCL has a Fan fiction page on their site forum, I feel like they're pretty open to the idea of us borrowing their characters. But anyways: don't own, don't sue.

.

.

.

It's On

I was going to win this thing _hands down_! There was no way Pocket-Protector was beating me this time. He and his stupid hair could just suck it!

"Sweetie," a voice called, "I made some cookies would you like-whoa."

Auntie came in to the room and paused the moment she saw the chaos spread across the floor, desk, bed, and even parts of the window. So many toothpicks, so little room.

"What is it Agatha I'm busy" I said, not even looking up from where I sat on the floor, carefully applying more glue to my creation.

"…I thought you just had to give a two minute oral presentation" Auntie said, eyeing the tea stained fabric drying in the window.

I rolled my eyes but didn't stop working. Auntie was a nice lady, and I am willing to admit that despite her eccentricities she is one of the more tolerable people in my existence. But sometimes she could be just so _slow_ on the uptake.

"We do, and with this" I held up the toothpick monstrosity "I will have a perfect example piece to explain the many intricacies of a felucca".

Auntie blinked at me a few times. "Bless you", was that sarcasm in her tone? I think it was.

"Fel-oo-kua" I enunciated.

"I feel like I need to wash your mouth out with soap for that" Auntie said wandering into the room and looking at the many things spread across my desk.

I choose to ignore that comment, "it's a type of sailing ship, more of a boat really, seeing as it's not very sea worthy. The Egyptians mostly just used them to travel along the Nile".

"Mmm" Auntie hummed, it really irritated me when she did that. When I first moved here I thought it was because she wasn't paying attention. But then she'd be able to repeat everything I'd said back to me verbatim, all while still reading her book, or tending to her plants. Now I knew that she made that noise when she was thinking something but didn't feel inclined to let me in on what it was. Which was annoying. "Uh sweetie" she said, now looking at my laptop "how exactly did you manage to turn a twelve hundred word assignment into a fourteen page paper? I don't think your teachers going to want to read all that".

"Psh its fine" I said analyzing my feluccas deck of popsicle sticks "it's actually only _eleven_ pages, one of them's a cover page, and two more are for references"

Auntie made a sighing noise prompting me to glance at her. She was giving me that _look._

"…there's pictures" I said. They only took up two thirds of a page when all together but Auntie didn't know that.

"Uh-huh, and what about the cut up, dirty sheets drying in the window?"

"Sails, the tea stains makes them look more authentic".

Auntie just shook her head, but she was smiling. "Anyways" she said "I made cookies, they're fresh out of the oven. Take a break and come have some."

My mouth watered at the thought of sugary treats. I _really_ liked Aunties baking, but I couldn't stop. I had to win this thing, which means my felucca had to be perfect. Then again my stomach had been grumbling at me for the last hour.

"In a minute Agatha" I said, "I want to get all these little oars made first".

Auntie rolled her eyes, "all right, but if you're not in there in ten minutes I'm coming back to _help you_ with your project" she said, an evil glint in her eyes.

I gulped, "uh, sure Agatha, I'll be there in a few minutes". No way was I letting that happen, if she had her way my ship would be nothing but ribbons and tie dye.

Auntie smiled heading for the door, "you deserve some, you've been working so hard lately, both at school and everything else". I tried really hard not to fidget at that statement. "And besides" she continued "I was only able to make them thanks to you getting that nice flour".

I jerked upright nearly dropping the felucca, "wait, what flour!" I said, "The brown bag flour?"

"Um, yes?"

Like lighting I shot up and rushed past Auntie. I sprinted down the hall ripping my coat off the hook as I went, skidding to a stop at the doormat, and plopping my butt down to quickly put on my shoes.

"What? What's the fuss" Auntie said coming up behind me.

"I was going to make hard tak!"

"Hard what now?"

"Biscuits!"

"I have canned biscuits in the fridge?"

"No! Hard tak, it's like sailors bread, I need to make some for the class".

Auntie crossed her arms, smiling down at me "you _need_ this for the supposed to be eight hundred word report?"

"Yes!" I said standing up. "Council-Busy-Body will never see it coming. Not only will I have an Egyptian ship recreation but I will have authentic ship food!"

"Sweetie…this was a three day assignment".

"And that was three days for Prim-Press to build a sarcophagus. I know that's what he's doing! I overheard him talking to Violet about face piece designs". I opened the door ready to head out.

"Sweetie…"

"What?!"

Auntie just pointed at my side. I looked down and realized that I still had the felucca tucked under my arm.

"Oh", I handed it to her "uh, thanks".

"No problem, just be back before it gets dar- hey wait a minute, are these my chopsticks?"

"Gotta go".

I ran out the door, down the hall and busted down the staircase before she could stop me. Coming outside I hadn't even made it to the sidewalk before something small plopped off my head. It was a button.

"Those were my good chopsticks" Auntie was yelling at me from the second floor apartment balcony.

"I needed a mast" I called back.

"You could have used some of the popsicle sticks".

"Those aren't round, it would have looked stupid. Einstein-Wannabe would never let me live that down".

"Why can't you ever just call that boy by his name?"

"What?"

"I said; why can't you-"

"I heard what you said, why do you care?"

"I just find your obstinance interesting."

"I…it's because he deserves it!" I shouted, then mumbled to myself crossing my arms "the prat".

"Honestly, I don't think I even remember what his name is" Auntie was saying.

"I think it started with an M" someone called. A little old lady stepped out onto her own balcony, next to Aunties.

"Oh hello Mable" Auntie said, "was that it? Let's see, Martin, Max, Michael-

"It had three syllables" Mr. Johnson from the first floor poked his head out the window, calling up to the two.

"I thought it was four" his wife said, popping out next to him.

"No it was three" her husband responded.

"I remember it was a nice sounding name" Mable smiled to herself.

"Matthias, Maximillian," Auntie was saying.

"Three"

"Four"

" _Three"_

" _Four!"_

"Such a nice young man"

"Montgomry, Mateo, Milton, wait that's two syllables"

" _Four!"_

"Oh for the love of" I said, throwing my hands up, "It's Nathaniel! His name is Nathaniel!"

"That was it!" Auntie said snapping her fingers.

"Ha, three" Mr. Johnson said.

Mable was just smiling.

I sighed at the pavement, "why is this apartment complex full of nosy busy bodies?" I asked to no one in particular. Hearing Mable ask a question to Auntie about 'the nice young man', I quickly turned and headed off down the street. I did _not_ want to hear that discussion.

I guess it was true, he was a nice young man for the most part. Not to me of course, but other people always went on and on about his kindness. Mable had met him last week when he had walked me home after the whole 'ghost incident'. Because that was Nathaniel for you, being a gentlemen even to his mortal enemy. Well okay, actually I think Castiel is his mortal enemy, but I am a close second! And at least I'm a worthy rival.

Before I showed up Nathaniel was the smartest kid in school. Nothing but advanced classes and straight A's, _and_ student council president. Also when he'd walked me home I had started teasing him about how useless he'd be if someone did attack us, and he told me he practices kendo. I didn't believe him so he kicked an old metal trashcan to prove his point.

I was actually passing by that trash can right now. I wonder if anyone's ever going to get it out of that tree. Not sure why they'd bother, it's kind of useless being practically bent in half.

Nathaniel did have me beat physically I guess, but I was a 5 foot 6 girl, so that didn't count. And he had Castiel to compete with for that. No way was I getting in the middle of any kind of cat fight those two had going on.

And speaking of cats, what was with Nathaniel and the little fur balls? My first week in this town I had stumbled across him feeding a bunch of strays…just, ew. He was in a back alley not far from school and they were crawling all over him while he gave them multi colored fish shaped crackers. I couldn't help but stare at him in complete bewilderment. And then one of the flea infestations came up to _me_ and started yowling, prompting Nathaniel to notice I was standing there. I tried to leave but the little monster _followed me_. Why?

Nathaniel tried to feed it and get it back amongst the others but could the thing be logical? No. When it wasn't looking I tried to run only to have it pounce digging its claws into my calf. I admit, I did squeal, _but only a little_. So there we were in this stupid back alley, with a stupid mini fuzz face clinging to my leg, with me stupidly bouncing around shaking my leg, and stupid Nathaniel trying to grab it. Not a good day.

So yes, Nathaniel was your ideal student. Perfect both academically, physically, and a kind soul to boot. And then I show up and screw it all to hell for him. In a way I almost felt sorry for the prat. …ha ha no I didn't.

I know it's egotistical to say, but _I am smart_.

Quite frankly, I used to not care. I still took all the advanced classes because that's where school counselors would insist I go, and I still always got straight A's because things just came that easy to me. But I didn't give a damn. No matter how many people tried inspiring me, be it teachers, counselors, or the never ending parade of 'caregivers', I simply could care less about this gift.

I kind of still don't.

But I do care about kicking Mr. Perfect-Stuckup-Blondie-Dress-Shirts ass. So tomorrow, I'm gunna have the best Egyptian history project Mr. Fariaze has ever seen! Nathaniel may have won last week with the science project (and I was still suspicious that he'd had outside help). He'd taken advantage of his bragging rights for the rest of the week, as he should. But now it was my turn. I know he's gotten cocky, having also gotten one more extra credit point than me on that math test today, but that just meant that his defeat tomorrow would be all the more sweet.

Grinning, I quickened my stride.

* * *

I yawned and stretched feeling several vertebrae pop satisfyingly.

Glancing at the garage clock I noted that I'd been at this for nearly six hours now. It was getting late but I was almost done.

It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't been stuck at kendo for so long. Practice had gone on and on, and then being the idiot that I am I offered to take over cleaning duty for Mica because his grandfather was visiting. That was the third time this week I'd stayed after to help clean, you were only assigned to do it once every two weeks. Maybe I should start charging people.

But I honestly didn't mind staying that late, same reason I usually hung around the school for a few hours. More time somewhere else meant less time here.

It did make getting this project done a bit of a hassle though. Not for the first time over these past few days, hell these last few months, I debated on just saying screw it. Let her win, as long as I still got good grades what did it matter? Mom didn't care if I won or not, Dad _definitely_ didn't care. As long as they don't know about her as anything other than that girl Amber can't stand, I would be fine.

I looked at the four foot long, intricate box on the workbench. So much effort for such a stupid project. I mean was it really worth it?

She was just one ridiculous girl at school, at stupid _high_ -school for that matter.

… _dammit I refuse to lose_.

With a fever I went back to spray painting the sarcophagus. There was no way I was letting _her_ get the best of me.

"Nathaniel!"

I looked up, surprised to see Amber standing there and coughing, I hadn't even heard her come in.

" _Cough, cough,_ it is two o'clock in the damn morning!" she all but shrieked.

That was true. I waited to see if she was going anywhere with that, but she just stood there glaring at me.

"And?" I finally asked.

Amber threw her hands up, " _and,_ you're keeping me awake with all this racket! It's just a stupid box!"

I rolled my eyes at her, I was hardly making any noise, especially not any that could be heard in the rest of the house. I wasn't stupid enough to risk waking either of my parents up.

"Sarcophagus" I corrected, "and I'm just spray painting Amber".

"Yes and its keeping me up!"

"How?"

"You know I sleep with the window open!"

No, no I didn't. Honestly it's like she thinks I kept track of every minor aspect of her life sometimes.

"Then close the window" I said, working very hard not to add a 'duh'.

Amber sniffed, "I need the fresh hair for my hair, _you_ close the garage".

"Amber, that is dangerous, and besides-"

"It'll be fine" she huffed walking towards the controls.

"No!" I shouted, lunging for her and grabbing her wrist before she could hit the button.

"I told you, it'll be fine!" she seethed.

"You'll wake dad up!" I hissed.

She huffed. "So what? He'll just go back to sleep"

No he wouldn't. If any kind of noise from this part of the house woke him I just knew I'd get blamed. I suddenly got the image of Amber stomping up the stairs, and felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I looked back at the sarcophagus. It was perhaps another ten minutes of spray painting, and then a half hour of detail work before it was done.

Amber was still glaring at me. I sighed. There was no help for it.

"Alright, fine I'll stop" I said.

Amber gave me the stink eye for a few more seconds before turning on her heel with a prissy " _hmph"_ and made her way back into the house. I followed, carefully creeping along and wishing desperately she would do the same.

We made it to our respective rooms without incident and I was suddenly aware of just how tired I was. I flopped down on my bed face first and just lay there. I didn't want to _move._

I'd almost fallen asleep before I remembered I needed to set my alarm another half hour early if I wanted any hope of finishing in the morning. I yanked the damn thing off the night stand, moving as little as physically possible. I did the same removing my clothes, not even flipping to my back as I yanked the shirt and pants off.

 _Okay so what still needs to be done_ I thought, ticking off things in my head. _Finish the base paint, do the detail work on the sides, thank gods the mask is all done, finish wrapping the mummy, I really hope the gauze has dried out by morning, and print off the paper at school tomorrow._

It would be stressful but doable. I tried to calm down to catch what sleep I could. But my head kept swimming with thoughts about the stupid thing…and the reason I was so obsessed.

I flipped to my back and glared at the ceiling, but all I saw was _her_ , her and that annoying, obnoxious, frustrating smirk she made whenever she bested me.

When Mr. Faraize had first given the assignment and announced that the best presentation would be receiving and extra ten credit points, our eyes had immediately snapped to each other. She squinted at me, and I clenched my jaw at her, and it was _on_. There was even a collection of groans from the class, most of them being aware of our rivalry by now. Mr. Faraize was, of course, oblivious to it. Some of the teachers were beginning to pick up on our conflict and where responding accordingly, i.e. don't present a straight up challenge to the class if you don't want war.

It was amazing really, she'd only been here for three months and already she was a contender for top of the class. I'd lost track of the number of times she'd beaten me on a test or project, or had been able to answer more questions, or had written nicer lab notes, or just, whatever it was!

My parents would be furious if they found out, father especially. Bested by a _girl?!_ Father would never accept such a thing. Good thing he'd never find out. So long as I maintained my perfect G.P.A. and was the best in Kendo he was happy. Or well, happy as he could be.

So the question I had to ask myself, and in fact _had_ been asking myself; why did I care?

It was just a stupid teenage rivalry and I knew that, yet I still allowed myself to be sucked in. Its ridiculous, and honestly I think it brings out the worst in me, making me act childish. One of the few things my father has drilled into me that I actually agree with is presentation and maturity. How people view you is _extremely_ important.

But today, we got our math tests back, and I had received full marks, no surprise. But of the five advanced extra credit questions I had gotten four of them right.

As she always did on test return days, our teacher, Mrs. Applbaum, gave us the last twenty minutes of class to go over our tests and get started on homework. And, as always on these days, _she_ had sidled up to my desk, all casual, holding her test paper behind her back. She sat at the desk to my right, taking the seat that usually belonged to Iris, who would go work/chat with Kim and violet during these free work periods.

"So" she said, still feigning casualness.

"So" I returned, playing along.

Our eyes locked, my shoulders stiffened, I could feel Melody on my left cringing. We snapped at the same time, flipping our tests face up onto our desks. My eyes flicked away from hers briefly, to see her marks just as she looked at mine. She had an 83 to my 84.

And in an extreme bout of childishness, I grinned and stuck my tongue out at her. I can't even begin to explain _why_ I did it. And the second I realized what I was doing I felt so foolish and ridiculous.

But her eyes had snapped back to mine, and there was a fire there promising retribution. And suddenly we were both bent over our homework scribbling away madly, occasionally glancing at each other to see how far along they were. Melody tried to engage me in conversation once or twice, and I know I answered her, but I was too absorbed to really notice what she or I was saying. And I'm pretty sure at one point I actually grunted in answer to something she said. I fell kind of bad about brushing her off now, but in that moment it had been all about beating that annoying girl sitting across from me.

I glared again at my bedroom ceiling, still seeing her ridiculous smirk whenever she beat me. Glancing at my clock I saw that I had wasted a full fifteen minutes of precious sleep time thinking about _her_.

Groaning at my own stupidity I flipped over and tried to wipe all thoughts of that annoying, obnoxious, girl out of my head.

* * *

I was ready to go. My felucca was complete, the hard-tak I had stayed up late baking was tucked into a big square tupperware Auntie loaned me. My paper and homework were all in my back pack. My hair was brushed, my shoes were on, my shirt wasn't accidentally tucked into my panties or anything.

So why did I feel like I was forgetting something?

"Lunch Dearie" Auntie called from the couch, not even looking up from the morning paper. I seriously am beginning to wonder if that woman is a mind reader.

* * *

So turns out lugging this stupid sarcophagus to school was the hardest part of this whole ridiculous project. Getting it into the trunk of the car had been an exercise in creative thinking, Father had not been amused. I just know I'll be paying for putting that scowl on his face later.

"Why do you even need this stupid box" he grumbled standing next to me as I tried to level it into the trunk.

"It's a sarcophagus, you know for my Egyptian project. I was assigned mummies and burial rights so I-"

He was giving me that look. The one that said shut up and hurry up. He left me to it as he went and sat in the driver's seat clearly indicating that I had about a minute to get my ass in gear.

Finally discerning that the damn thing would not fit in the trunk, Amber and I sat in the back seat with the thing spread across our laps. And then I had to listen to her moan about how heavy it was and how it was messing up her outfit for the entire ride to school. Something my sleep deprived brain did not enjoy. Fathers scowl had only deepened during the ride meaning he hadn't cared for her wining either. But did he tell her to stop? No, of course not.

We pulled up to the school, and Amber quickly jumped out strutting straight for her friends. This left me to shimmy both myself and the four foot long box out of the car on my own. Having learned from earlier heaving the thing into the car; it only took me about a minute to get it out. But with the way Father was tapping his finger against the steering wheel you would think I was stopping to admire the scenery, not doing my damn best to keep up appearances as I kept myself from grunting in excursion as I angled my body awkwardly to get the proper leverage needed to hoist the thing out without banging it against anything or scratching up the leather seats.

Once it was on the sidewalk I went back to close the car door.

"Thank you for the ride sir" I said, keeping my voice level and polite.

Father only grunted, not even turning to look at me. I carefully shut the door, wary of not 'thrashing it about like a hooligan'. Father loved his sleek black Rolls Royce, which meant the rest of us were required to love it too. I slammed the door only one time when I was late and rushing to kendo, Father made sure I never did that again.

The Royce peeled off and I was left alone on the sidewalk to lug my project in on my own.

* * *

As I got off the bus some jerk on a skateboard flew right past me nearly nocking the felucca out of my arms. He called something back to me about watching where _I was going,_ so I threw up a hand ready to give him the one fingered salute.

"Good morning" a small voice mumbled behind me.

Quickly, I brought my hand down and turned around. Violet was behind me, chin tilted down and sketchbook securely in place beneath her arms. As always, she was the picture of demure.

"Um, morning Violet…you, didn't just see that…did you?" I asked. Violet is a sweet heart through and through. When I'd first come here I hadn't much noticed her as she was just so _shy_. But then Iris had introduced us and it was just not possible to be upset with someone like Violet. At times I wish she was more confident in herself but then at other times I just want to hug her and tell her it will all be okay…and then have her point out the bad guys so that we can sick Kim on them.

Violet just smiled at me as she walked past, not truly confirming, but definitely denying that she had just seen my little bout of delinquency.

"Right…you totally saw that" I groaned.

Violet only giggled, and honestly it made me feel better. I'd only been at this school for three months, and I tried to be on my best behavior especially around people like Violet who I actually _enjoyed_ be around. I didn't know if we were friends, as I didn't have a lot of experience with those, but this seemed like the kind of thing a friend would be okay with.

"Nice boat by the way" she said, pointing at my creation, "very…sturdy"

"I know it's not pretty, but it is accurate. It's from the early dynastic period, before King Menes had even founded Memphis. So they didn't really have a lot of the artistic flair they're known for yet. And it's a felucca."

I looked at her and I could tell that she hadn't understood a word of what I'd said. But she'd listened and smiled indulgently at me. I think that was another thing friends were supposed to do, _indulge_ each other. Was this a quid-pro-quo thing? I'll listen to your ravings if you'll listen to mine? Should I make an effort to look at her drawings more?...I should make an effort to look at her drawings more.

"Hi girls!" a bright voice broke into my thoughts as a head of orange-red hair came up next to violet. Iris smiled at us chipper as always, I think she wakes up like that. "Are you having a good morning? I hope today we get to-why do have a boat?" she asked noticing my toothpick monstrosity.

"Felucca" I corrected, "and it's for the history project today."

Iris suddenly reddened with worry, "it was a project? I thought we just had to write a paper."

And then I was worried that I'd worried her. I tried to calm her down but wasn't doing a very good job at it and the whole time Violet just giggled at my failed people skills.

A sleek black car pulled up to the curb just in front of us interrupting my explanation that food wasn't necessary either. Before the vehicle had even come to a stop the back door was thrown open and out rushed Amber. "Ugh, stupid box" she grumbled to herself.

Iris, Violet and I all stopped, not wanting to get in the way of the priss queen herself. Luckily for us she spotted Li and Charlotte and click-clacked her healed feet over to them in a hurry.

After her came an equally blonde head in the form of our illustrious student body president. He reached back in the car and pulled out his massive project that had to be about five times the size of my little boat. And suddenly I wasn't so confident.

He set it down on the curb and then went back to say something to the driver before they pulled away, and I felt an even bigger pang of jealousy. It figured really. _Of course_ Nathaniel and Amber got dropped off and a shiny car, the kind of car that always looked new. The kind of car that in a way always was new because every time it got so much as a tiny miniscule scratch it got new body work and a fresh paint job. Meanwhile I had to budget the few bus tickets I got every month, so that I didn't have to walk on days like this when I had a bunch of stuff to carry.

And _of course,_ Nathaniel had a big giant project. Made out of good materials that he could get at the hardware store, using the power tools and supplies that were probably in his garage. Because with a car like that, there was no way those people didn't have a giant garage. Auntie and I didn't even have a parking spot that was ours at the apartment complex.

And then, _of course_ , Nathaniel has a parent that drops him off at school. One that he gets to say goodbye to every morning.

And I…I…

…

I shook the thoughts away.

Whatever.

It was whatever.

My felucca was still way better than his stupid project, and my paper was gunna be much better than his, and then as the real kicker, I had hard-tak! Ha! I brought actual food, which is always the most important thing to a group of teenagers. Even if it is tasteless and rigid biscuits.

I could- _would_ win this thing still.

The shiny car drove away and as Nathaniel turned back to collect his project he finally saw the three of us. His eyes landed on me, and I lifted my chin just a little as we walked up to him.

"Morning" I said.

"Good morning" he responded.

"Nice sarcophagus" I shrugged an arm towards his project, not breaking eye contact.

"Nice felucca" he said, nodding his chin at my arm, also keeping his eyes steadily on mine.

…

I could practically feel Violet and Iris fidgeting beside me.

Finally I smirked, throwing in as much cock-sure confidence as I could manage.

"Good luck today Nathaniel" I said.

He nodded. "And to you too, Malory"

It was _on!_

* * *

 _AN:_ So I'm honestly not sure where I'm going with this. As I said in the opening authors notes: I pretty much just started writing this to pacify myself. I have a broad idea for plot, and this story will probably at least loosely follow the mcl chapters. But what I'm getting at is that I am completely open to ideas and feedback, be they over arcing multi chapter developing stories or just mini little ideas that are for filler and fun. Anything to get the plot bunnies hopping.

Also, please, _please_ feel free to criticize. Tell me what you felt was good, explain to me where it was bad.

Oh and I didn't bother to explain what she looked like, so that readers could more or less imagine their own Candy girls looks in Malory's place. But I'm not entirely sure if that was the right choice, as I definitely gave her a personality (or at least try to) that people can't impose their own characters onto. Your thoughts?

Any who, if you got this far, thank you so much for taking the time to read this. You are wonderful and I appreciate you giving my writing a chance. Be sure to have a lovely day!


	2. Chapter 2

Oh my good golly gosh people actually took the time read my ramblings! To all of you who faved, followed, and reviewed: thank you! Sincerely, no joke, _thank you_. I had to keep checking back to look at them while writing this chapter to confirm with myself that, yes, people do like this. I'm not gunna lie, that last chapter was probably only posted due to a lack of sleep that was shutting down my logic center and that Dr. Pepper buzz that was revving up my confidence. But this is being posted on nothing other than a mug of earl grey. And it's all because of you guys, so again; thank you.

Also I didn't even notice that I never put Candy as one of the stories character tags. There, I fix.

Anyways long chapter is long. Maybe give yourself some time for a bathroom break on this one.

.

.

.

Chapter 2

You'd make a Terrible Watson

…

 _Dammit_. Why did I have to be such a gentleman? Because I like to screw myself over apparently.

Third period history had finally rolled around and as soon as roll call was finished Mr. Faraize had asked if anybody would like to go first. And _of course,_ because I'm an _idiot;_ I acquiesced to let Malory go first. And now Mr. Faraize was practically swooning over her choice to dip her feluccas sails in to tea in order to give them a nice stain effect. Dammit, that was my idea! I did the same exact thing with my mummy's gauze but it was Malory who Mr. Faraize was going to notice.

Why did I let her go first? Father is always trying to tell me how much of a push over I am, and you know what, he's right. He is absolutely right.

The tub of plastic she'd brought was suddenly in my field of vision. Iris was going up and down the isles passing out the hard-tak. She smiled down at me already biting into her own biscuit.

I smoothed my features and smiled back at her pleasantly, my mother's voice in my head; appearances, always keep up appearances. Iris noticed nothing and moved on after I'd taken one. In fact nobody in class noticed that I was sitting here fuming. Amber wasn't the only one who was a good actor. On the outside I looked as calm and collected as ever.

But inside…

Just watching the way Mr. Faraize was holding up her felucca so that it could better catch the light, praising its craftsmanship and dedication. And the whole time Malory smiled her own pleasant little smile. But while my lips where doing this to cover up my frustration, hers where covering up just how pleased she was with herself. I knew full well that if a teacher wasn't here, she'd look right at me and give me that annoying obnoxious grin of hers, maybe even stick her tongue out just to be petulant.

I bit into the hard-tak to keep my teeth from grinding. It was disgusting just like it was supposed to be, and just like she'd explained to the class. Everyone had laughed but were eating it anyways because it was fun and because lunch was still a couple hours off. Clever of her really, passing out food to a bunch of hungry teenagers.

Gods how I hated her.

* * *

Breath, just remember to breath.

I did _not_ like public speaking. I barely even had a grasp of non-public speaking. And now to make matters worse, Mr. Faraize would just not shut up about my stupid ship. I'd given my presentation, made sure to keep eye contact throughout, showed off the felucca, and Iris was just finishing passing out the food. I should be done. I just wanted to skirt back to my seat and _be done._

Blondie could have his go, I don't even care right now if his is better. I mean, I will care in about a minute or two when I'm back at my seat and calmed down. But right here and now, in front of everyone staring at me, and with the florescent lights glaring down, and Mr. Faraize _complimenting!_ I hate compliments even more then I hate public speaking! Did he really have to smile at me like that?

Why did I ever agree to show him around on his first day last month? I was practically his favorite now. I didn't know how to be a favorite. And Mr. Faraize was kind of a doof, but he was a nice enough guy and as far as teachers go he actually wasn't half bad, which was really saying something when talking about the public school system. I seriously did not want to be his, or anybody else's favorite. My track record has proven me to be shit at these kind of things, and sooner or later I am going to let him down.

All I could do was smile and breathe, and try to keep from fidgeting.

Finally, _finally_ , he told me good job one last time, and I could scurry back to my seat in the most dignified manner I could manage. My tupperware got passed back to me and there were only four biscuits left, meaning that most people had taken at least two; a good sign.

Focus shifted to Nathaniel as he stood, graceful as ever, not even squeaking or scraping his chair, and walked to the front to give his presentation. I took a moment to breathe in deep through the nose a few times.

I really, _really_ did not like giving presentations. It was hard to keep my words from stringing together, and even harder to keep my head up and looking at all those people _staring_ at me. It certainly didn't help when Nathaniel was watching me…judging me. Because he was the only one in this class who I considered qualified to do that, even counting Mr. Faraize.

Council-Pencil-Pusher was just so…gah, perfect! He knew all the right answers, not just to book things and writing papers and stuff. But to real things, like how to talk to teachers, and how to compromise so that the student body was both well taken care of and happy, and how to stand up in front of a room a piers and be completely at ease. I watched him standing perfectly tall, but not ramrod straight, his voice carrying evenly and clear but without shouting, and his eyes attentively making contact but without being overbearing.

Those bright golden eyes landed on me briefly and I tried to remember how to sit straight, not that I actually had ever learned how. But I'd had enough people telling me to do it over the years that I think I eventually figured it out…more or less.

Not fidgeting was another matter entirely.

The second his eyes left me my hands were back to twisting scraps of paper loose from the spiral of my notebook. I tried to keep sitting up though, just in case he looked back again. Which he would, and when he did: I'd hold still, sit up right, and keep my chin high, maybe even throw in a little smirk.

I'd show him, I could be perfect too.

* * *

I never cared much for the whole 'oral presentation' thing. I wasn't bad at it, far from it, stage freight wasn't really an attribute an aspiring musician could afford to have. I just didn't think they were very beneficial to learning. Unlike what most people thought about me, l didn't actually hate school, I just hated going to school. But I could still recognize the benefits of it, it's simply that none of those benefits apply to me. My time is much better spent practicing guitar and coming up with new melodies than it is learning about ancient Egyptian burial rights.

Which was where I was right now, listening to Prez explain the oh so fascinating art of wrapping up dead corpses. And this is why I hate student presentations. The teacher could never give you any _real_ assignments because if you ended up getting wrong information, or you just flat out sucked, then the class wouldn't be learning anything. But by giving you useless topics to research the class still might not be learning anything but even if they were, its just useless information. This meant that just about everyone spent the class period either doodling or discreetly playing hangman with their neighbor like me and Lysander were doing right now.

I did have to admit that Rorys felucca was pretty neat though. Still completely useless information, but I _had_ learned something. True, that might have only been because Lysander had hissed at me that I better pay attention at least for her assignment, but once I started to it wasn't that hard. Rory was good, she had just enough necessary facts to teach you something, and just enough frivolous facts to keep your attention. It definitely helped that she had provided food.

I took a bite out of one of my biscuits while drawing another limb on Lysanders hanging stickman. The hard-tak was awful, there was no flavor to it besides the barest trace of salt. But they were filling and that made them absolutely delicious. Both me and Lysander had taken four, we knew how Rory worried about people not liking the things she'd done. And while it was amusing to watch her flail about trying to please anyone and everyone, I wasn't without mercy. So I could eat an extra few of the stupid biscuits. Plus lunch was still two hours off.

Lysander wrote a G on the paper, and just like that I knew he'd figured out the word. It was short work then as Lysander wrote down the remaining four letters to gladiator and I filled them in. I don't know how the guy did it. As with most things in life, Lysander seemed completely clueless, guessing strange and odd letters, but then he just _knew_ what the word was when he only had like one or two misses left.

Stupid Prez finished up his report, and then Peggy went, and then maybe that Kenny kid, I kind of zoned out once Prez started talking. The rest of class was a blur of playing stupid paper games with Lysander, and doodling a couple of pointless melodies on my notebook, I really only paid attention again when Lysander elbowed me into listening to Rosa. It was kind of hilarious to watch her, she'd gotten Egyptian fashion, and surprise surprise, she was all over it. I'll bet money that Leigh will be carrying a new exotically inspired line of clothing by the end of the month.

But finally the bell rang, and I was all too happy to bug out. Lysander followed me, although at a bit more dignified pace. Out in the hall we caught sight or Rory talking to the Kenny dork. Was he…crying?

Rory looked supremely uncomfortable as he grasped one of her hands in both his own and tried to give her a formal bow. But it was clunky and awkward even from where I was standing. He caught sight of me and Lysander, and he suddenly paled.

"Uh, a-anyways, it was nice getting to know you. Thank you, and, and bye. Okay, thanks" he said, before scurrying away.

"Seriously why are you friends with that dork?" I asked, coming up behind her.

Without missing a beat, she smacked my arm. "Because he's _nice_. Unlike you, you cretin."

I shrugged. Not really caring what she called me. Honestly that was one thing I kind of liked about Rory, she was like a walking thesaurus for insults.

"Why was he so upset" Lysander asked.

Rory immediately straightened up. She was still a little awkward around Lysander. She was just in that be on your best behavior, make a good impression stage with him. It wasn't all that surprising, seeing as it took her a good two months to get used to me. I think me not giving a damn about any of that stuff is actually one of the reasons she's so loose around me. Hopefully she'll get to there with Lysander soon.

"Um, actually he's leaving" Rory said, in answer to Lysander's question, "He just wanted to say goodbye."

"I didn't know you were that close" Lysander observed.

Rory shrugged. "We're not. Honestly I feel kind of bad for the guy. He only came to this school to follow his long time crush. Only problem is; he followed the wrong Malory".

I started laughing, "Wait for real? That's got to be the most pathetic thing I've ever heard".

She slapped my arm again, and Lysander let out a big sigh. I just kept laughing.

"Anyways" Rory said, "He came and found me on our first day and when he found out I wasn't _his_ Malory he just sort of started sobbing, and I felt _awful,_ I didn't know what to do, and so I was trying to comfort him, but you know how bad I am at that stuff. But then Amber and her two cronies came and started picking on him, and _that_ I could handle. So I pretty much told them to stuff it where the sun don't shine, and from then on I guess Kenny I where friends…so…yeah".

Both Lysander and I just looked at her.

And then I started laughing again.

"It's not funny Castiel!"

"Admit it's a little funny" I said.

Lysander sighed, but said "it is a little funny Rory, at least in a comedy of errors sort of fashion"

Rory opened her mouth about to retort, when a screeching noise not unlike a constipated banshee sounded from down the hall. I knew that noise.

"The beast awakens" I groaned, rolling my eyes towards the ceiling.

The principal rounded the corner and came clomping towards us. Rory shuffled behind Lysander. I groaned again trying to remember what I could have possibly done this week to piss her off. But then the Principal went right past us.

"Nathaniel!" she shrieked.

Nathaniel looked at her surprised, obviously not used to being addressed in such a fashion. Heck most of the kids assembled where now looking at her in shock. What the hell could perfect ickle little Nathaniel have done to provoke the gargoyles wrath?

"Follow me!" she yelled, and then she stormed back down the hallway, a concerned but still surprised student body president in her wake. They went into the teachers' lounge, the door slamming behind them. Peggy immediately perked up, turning on her recorder and rushing after them.

"What do you suppose that was about" Lysander asked.

Rory was already wandering down the hall, her eyes doing that big round and curious thing. Gotta hand it to that girl, she is truly skilled in the art of getting herself tangled up in every mess that passes through these halls.

Being the gentleman that he is, of course Lysander followed after her, most likely to insure that she stayed out of trouble. And being the jackass that I am, I followed too, mostly because I knew that keeping Rory out of trouble was completely impossible, and therefor this was going be very entertaining.

* * *

I got closer to the teachers' lounge right as the principal was reaching what sounded like the apex of her rant. The lounge door suddenly burst open nearly clipping me in the chin as our wild hair, crazed eyed principal stormed out.

"Nathaniel, I'm warning you for the last time, if this isn't settled quickly, it won't be one hour of detention you risk, but definitive expulsion from the school!"

Geeze-le-weeze what is she screeching about now? Expulsion!? I know I'm not the best at understanding people but I'm pretty sure I've got a solid enough read on Nathaniel to know that he would never in a million years do anything to warrant such a punishment.

The principal finally noticed me standing right next to her…uh oh.

" _And you!_ This does not concern you! Leave here this instant!"

"Yes ma'am!" I quickly turned on my heel and fled from the angry kraken the posed as our leader of education. I grabbed Lysander (who had apparently followed me) by the wrist as I sped past him, forcing him to spin on the spot. I dragged him down the hall and around the nearest corner only to find a snickering Castiel.

"Jerk!" I said, smacking him on the arm. This only got him laughing more.

"Never a dull moment with you Rory" he said, smirking down at me.

I glared, "you could have come with us. You have more practice with the principals rage fits after all".

"Which is why I stayed away, see I actually learn from past experience".

"I've learned!"

"Yeah but does it stick" he said leaning over me and giving me a good poke in the forehead, "because I give it a week, tops, before you're suckered into some new 'quest', all because you couldn't keep a handle on your curiosity".

"I can too" I mumbled rubbing at my forehead and probably sounding like a petulant four year old.

I think Castiel was about to start a can too, can not, can too war with me when Nathaniel came around the corner. He was rubbing at his forehead as well, and looking way to warn down for a teenager. He caught sight of us and froze. Immediately he and I dropped our hands and stood up a little straighter. I could still hear Castiel snickering behind me so I not so subtly elbowed him in the gut. That got him to shut up. I'd be damned if I looked like a simplistic ruffian who'd been goofing off in front of Nathaniel. Lysander at least always had an air of respectability around him.

Nathaniel's eyes bounced between the three of us, obviously measuring us up. I think he was about to just ignore us and keep walking but then he sighed and his shoulders drooped further than I thought he was capable of. Actually come to think of it I don't think I've ever seen Nathaniel slouch.

"I guess you heard all that" he said glaring at the floor tiles.

"Uh, duh" Castiel said, "what're you gunna pay us to pretend we didn't?"

I almost elbowed him again but then I noticed Lysander giving him _that look_. Say what you will about Lysander's spacyness, he was a pure genius when it came to Castiel-damage-control.

I turned back to Nathaniel, ready to say something dignified yet snarkily clever. But my tongue caught on the roof of my mouth when I saw his expression. He'd turned his glare from the tiles and it was now pointed at me, but it wasn't his usual 'it's on' glare that was typically sent my way. It was more of a defeated I'm so stressed out and I just don't care what else the world will throw at me today so whatever, kind of glare. I felt a little niggling in my stomach at the idea of me being just a 'whatever' to him.

"We didn't hear anything" I said, my eyes shifting away as I rubbed my arm "just the principal yelling as she stormed out". I'm a terrible liar and I'm pretty sure he knows that by now, so at least he knows I'm being honest.

Nathaniel straitened up a bit in surprise. Usually I'd relish throwing him off, but not this time. He quickly regained his composure and said irritably "someone stole some important documents that are kept safe in the teachers' lounge".

"Wow Prez, I didn't think you had it in you" Castiel said, obviously just to goad him.

And, of course, Nathaniel rose to the bait. Boys.

"Yeah, you know I thought about it, but then I realized that's something _you_ would do" he said.

"Hey, I'm not a thief" Castiel bit back.

"I'm sorry, I must be hearing things, tell me how exactly did you get those keys to the roof and basement? Come to think about it, this whole thing got started because my _keys_ are missing".

"You trying to say something, _Prez!?"_ Castiel took a step forward and passed me, his fists clenched at his sides.

"You're not _that_ stupid are you? You know exactly what it is I'm implying". Whoa, Nathaniel's never gotten that visceral that quickly in the time I've been here.

Nathaniel looked Castiel dead in the eye, squaring his shoulders and balling up his fists as well, practically daring his red headed counterpart to make a move. Instead, Lysander and I moved at the same time.

"Okay, enough chimpanzee styled male posturing" I said. Using my small size, I quickly ducked in between the two of them, my shoulders bumping against each of their chests. They were still starring each other down over my head so a placed a hand on each of their chests and gave a mighty shove…which did absolutely nothing. Seriously I'm not sure whether to curse them for their male physical prowess or my tiny useless sticks that pretend to be arms. At the very least they weren't going to start swinging while I was here, Nathaniel because he was a gentlemen and Castiel because I'm reasonably sure that deep within the blackened abyss of his heart that he sort of kind of likes me. At least enough that I'm tolerable.

Thankfully Lysander, the confrontation guru, was still present. With a simple but firm hand on Castiel's shoulder and another _look_ he was able to get the red head to back down. Castiel grumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a colorful reference to Nathaniel's manhood but we're all going to be adults here and pretend we didn't hear anything, right Nathaniel?

I focused on the blonde now that the immediate Castiel threat was out of range. Nathaniel was still glaring so I cleared my throat. His chin didn't move but his eyes flicked down to mine and I tried to imitate Lysander's _look,_ to the best of my limited ability. I don't think it did anything other than confuse Nathaniel.

But then we both noticed that we were standing only an inch or two a part, and we each quickly took a step back. Nathaniel looked away, and I suddenly noticed that our floors while appearing white upon first inspection are actually a very pale shade of lilac. Oh look the janitors missed a spot while waxing.

Awkward.

Nathaniel coughed still looking away, "anyways the principal thinks I took the documents, but really I have nothing to do with it. And if I don't get this sorted out quickly I'll be expelled".

Lysander grabbed his chin looking thoughtful. Castiel just crossed his arms and shrugged, the epitome of indifference.

Nathaniel sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose "I don't know why I'm even telling you guys this. See you later". He stepped away from us and suddenly always in control Nathaniel was back as he briskly walked down the hall in his usual assured confident way.

"That is…unfortunate" Lysander said once the blonde was out of earshot.

"Pfff, if we're lucky he'll be gone by the afternoon" Castiel said, but he wasn't looking at us.

"Ye….yeah" I said, deciding to agree with my friend. I'm pretty sure that's another thing friends are supposed to do, even when it makes your stomach turn a little.

Castiel shoved his hands in his pockets and stormed off, a bad mood clearly radiating about him, telling students to get out of the way. I figured Lysander would follow to do more damage control, but then I noticed him looking at me. Now I was getting a look.

"What?" I said, perhaps a little bit irritably. I didn't like this, and was trying really hard not to fidget.

Lysander didn't say anything, just blinked once at me, then sighed, then looked in the direction Nathaniel had gone. "I hope he knows what he's doing" he finally said, before taking off after his red headed friend.

And now I was fidgeting.

What the hell was that for? What did he expect _me_ to do? It's not like this was my problem. Just because I'd helped people with a few arbitrary things before didn't suddenly make me the patron saint of ludicrous conundrums! It's not like I _cared_ if Nathaniel was expelled or not. No sir, it wasn't my problem.

Not my problem.

…

 _So_ not my problem.

…

Not. Going. To. Help.

…

Nope.

Nu-huh.

…

…

…

Dammit.

I headed off down the hall in search of Nathaniel.

* * *

Nathaniel hadn't looked very happy when he'd come in. In fact he'd stormed into the student council room and gone straight to his usual table and started scribbling away at paperwork, a big dark cloud hanging over his head. I knew it was best just to leave him alone when he was like this. He preferred that, and I'd been working with him on the student council long enough that I'd gotten pretty good at figuring him out.

"Here you go Melody" Daniel the student body VP said, handing me another stack of paperwork.

I smiled at him in thanks and went to put the folder in the necessary filing cabinet. But then the door burst open and in stormed a wild eyed Malory Jones.

"All right prim press listen up, I'm only going to say this once so listen good! Are you listening!" she walked straight up to the table Nathaniel was sitting at and slammed her hands down flat across all his paperwork as she leaned over him. Nathaniel looked at her like she'd lost her marbles, we we're all looking at her like that.

"…you just said listen three times" Nathaniel finally said.

Malory started pacing briskly like she hadn't heard a word, in fact I think she actually didn't. "If we're going to catch this perpetrator, then we're going to need clues! I say we stake out the teachers' lounge, we might find something there".

"Wait," Nathaniel said, standing up, "are you…offering to help me?"

"Now obviously you don't have the key anymore, so step one will be to uncover its location"

"Malory…."

"And if we're lucky it might actually lead us to our thief"

" _Malory…_

"Now let's think, who would likely take them and where would they keep a stash"

"MALORY!"

The volume of his voice got her to stop as she jumped about a foot in the air. It made me jump too. Malory finally looked at him, her eyes rounded in surprise.

"I can't" Nathaniel started, but then his face took on a confused expression and he turned to her, "-do you read detective novels?" he asked with a hint of surprise.

"…Yeeesss" she was looking at him like he'd suddenly grown a second head. Admittedly it was a weird question, but I knew how much Nathaniel loved detective novels. And she was throwing around all that terminology, so he probably hadn't expected that of her. I know I hadn't.

Nathaniel was looking at her like he didn't believe her.

"Roderick thorp?" he asked.

Malory shrugged, "little dry, but he usually keeps me guessing"

"…Agatha Cristie?"

"Well I'm always a supporter of woman authors, not to mention the whole mystery debacle surrounding her own life is a constant source of intrigue".

"Sir Arthur Conan?"

She just looked at him, "please" she said.

Nathaniel was the one who now looked surprised. I couldn't blame him I probably did too. The last thing I'd expect of no tact Malory was to have read any of the greats.

"Jo Nesbo?" Nathaniel asked.

". . ."

Ha, he'd got her. Mr. Nesbo had only been writing for a few decades. She only knew these big famous names, authors whose work had been around for nearly a century. I sighed a little inside, I'd read a few of that authors books because Nathaniel had suggested him to me. Honestly I thought he was a little bit dark but it was still something that just Nathaniel and I shared. Wknowing that at least Malory was unaware of one of Nathaniels favorite authors was a good-

" _You've read the THE HARRY HOLE SERIES!"_ Malory shouted.

…seriously?

"I thought I was the only one who'd read that!" Malory said rushing up to the table and leaning on it again. Only now Nathaniel was standing and she was leaning right into his personal space looking up at him with big eager eyes.

I pressed my lips together not liking how she was _right there._ Couldn't she see she was bothering him? Malory was nice, just horribly uncouth. And I didn't like how much she bothered Nathaniel. It just concerned me that he was always ranting about her. I took a step forward and opened my mouth to tell her to leave him alone and to lightly scold her, but then she started talking non-stop.

"Have you gotten to the Snowman one yet? It's creepy as all hell but amazing. I mean, usually I like knowing who the villain is from the start, especially when it's a murder mystery, because we get to watch the story unfold from their perspective too, but with that book it was absolutely perfect not knowing. And what about his Doctor Procter series? There not so much mystery but they're really fun. Or, oh oh! Did you ever read anything he wrote under his pen name Tom Johansen? And what about-"

" _Malory!"_ Nathaniel yelled.

She stopped with her mouth still formed around her next word. She seemed to have finally realized what a spectacle she was making as she looked around and noticed everyone in it was now starring at her in utter bewilderment. Slowly, she backed off the table drawing her hands behind her back and began to fidget a little.

"Um…yes, I've read him" she finally said. "But-but anyways that's not why I came in here".

"Right" Nathaniel said, rubbing at his forehead, he did that a lot when she was around "you…want to help me?"

I raised a skeptical eyebrow at that. More likely this was just some elaborate mean spirited prank. And even though she hadn't necessarily done anything yet aside from her mini war with Amber, she was friends with Castiel and she _was_ Malory, the girl Nathaniel could never stop complaining about.

"Well…yeah" she shrugged. "I mean no, I don't _want_ to help you but…"

"But?"

"I just, well…Lysander was giving me this _look"_ she said crossing her arms and looking like _she_ was the victim here.

"That, makes zero sense" Nathaniel said.

"Argh!" Malory threw her hands in the air, "what does it matter? I'm helping you, end of story, yippee yea, let's go!"

She suddenly grabbed him by the wrist and before I knew it he was being dragged around the tables as Malory stormed off with him in tow. He nearly crashed into me and I almost lost my armful of paperwork. Luckily, Daniel caught me.

"Sorry!" Nathaniel called back but Malory had already rushed him out the door.

* * *

"What are we doing?"

"I already told you, we're interrogating the suspects!"

"Interrogating means asking questions, not hiding behind a low rock wall and starring at people"

"We're analyzing them so that we can better understand their movements!"

"…you are insane"

"Shhh, someone's coming, and crouch down already!"

"I _am_ crouched down!"

"Then stop being so tall!"

"I can't just-"

"Hi Nathaniel, hi Rory"

"Oh, hi violet!"

"What are you doing?"

"Analyzing! Wanna help?"

"Why doesn't she have to crouch down?"

"Psh, violet is the most unassuming person in the world, no one will suspect a thing of her".

"Right, especially when it looks like she's talking to a brick wall".

"You are such a pessimist, now be quite, we're analyzing".

* * *

"Okay so not Melody, definitely not Violet, Iris is out too, and Kim is in the clear, let's try this classroom".

"Does your method of uncovering information primarily involve wandering? Because so far we've gone in six circles around the school. I've been counting."

"Oh _I'm sorry_ are you bored. Here!"

"Why are you giving me a notepad, and a-Hey! I'm not your Watson!"

"Come along Doctor!"

"Malory!"

* * *

"So, Capucine was it, tell me have you noticed anything out of the ordinary in these halls over the past twenty four hours?"

"Hmm, nooooo…he-he. Oh wait, your Malory? Amber warned me about _you_ ".

"Amber what now?"

"He-he, nooothing"

"Is she spreading rumors about me behind my back now? Oh that is so typical. What lies has she told you?!"

"Hey, stay out of my personal space!"

"Answer me!"

"Okay, we're leaving".

"What, no! Nathaniel, let me go! I need answers! This isn't over Capucine! You hear me!? Gah! _Nathaniel_ put me down!"

* * *

"Are you _sure_ it wasn't Castiel? This seems like the kind of thing he'd do"

"Maybe, but it's not his style. I mean if he wanted to get at you then he probably would have just spray painted the student lounge or something like I did with Ambers locker-I mean…um…"

"…what?"

"What!"

* * *

"So anyways I'm pretty sure Peggy knows something but she isn't the one. Still it does beg the question of what she's hiding and why. And more importantly how can we get it out of her and-Nathaniel? Hey why'd you stop?"

"Malory…I'm not following you into the girl's bathroom".

* * *

*Sigh* "Hello Lysander"

"Good day Nathaniel, how goes the investigation?"

"Do I even want to know how you already found out what we're doing?"

"Gossip has a way of travelling in this school. So?"

"Let's just say that there are a lot of adjectives I could us to describe this morning"

"Nathaniel what are you doing? Lysander's not a suspect, we don't need to interrogate him. And Lysander, you see this, you see what I'm doing, so you don't need to be _looking_ at me okay!"

"Okay Rory".

"…why are you smiling like that?"

* * *

"You realize that we're getting nowhere"

"Well _maybe_ if you would just tell me what was taken out of the teachers' lounge I could actually start cross examining witnesses or something"

"There _weren't_ any witnesses. That's kind of why I'm being blamed remember?"

"My point still stands that you could let me in on what you know. I mean gosh what kind of partner are you?"

"We are _not_ partners"

"Whatever"

"...it was the upcoming exam sheets"

"What!? No way! I-that's…no way."

"Yeah"

"Oh…gosh, this is bad"

*Sigh*, "yeah"

* * *

"I'm _telling you_ Amber has something to do with this"

"Malory can we please not talk about this _during_ class?"

* * *

"Did you take them or didn't you!"

"I already told you I haven't touched your precious keys!"

"Okay Nathaniel, if Castiel said he didn't do it then he didn't do it…probably"

"Hey! Whose side are you on?'

"The side that gets Lysander to stop looking at me!"

"…what?"

"Yeah, seriously what?"

"Oh sure, now you guys agree on something"

* * *

"FOUND 'EM!" Malory sprung up from the bush she'd been shuffling around in, and to both my shock and delight she did indeed have my key ring dangling from her hand.

"And this is why we always inspect shiny things" she said, grinning from ear to ear while hurriedly working her way out of the foliage. I quickly made my way over to her and grabbed her elbow to help stabilize her, if there's one thing this morning has taught me it's that Malory has a tendency to lose focus when she _is focused_ on something. I'd been using that notepad she gave me to keep a tally of all the oddities I'd observed during our little adventure. So far Malory has run into three open lockers, tripped over seven backpacks, collided with two desks, and gotten into twelve arguments, only three of which were with me. Gods help the man who marries her.

She handed the keys off to me and after checking that they were all there I quickly pocketed them. She was still grinning up at me, and I still had her elbow. She was completely filthy and covered in leaves from her venture into the school gardens undergrowth. It was only on a whim that she decided to search here, saying that someone might have just chucked the keys once they were done with them.

I sighed, I knew what needed to be done, and I honestly was grateful to her. And even though it was _Malory_ , the most annoying, obnoxious girl on this planet, I still owed her the cuortesy her actions had earned her.

Shifting the hand that gripped her elbow down her arm so that I lightly held her hand in my upturned palm, I shifted my other hand to my lower back and bowed to her. "Thank you for your help today my lady" I said, drawing on all those phrases and gestures I'd had drilled into me since nursery school.

"Oh, um…y-your welcome" she said, already fidgeting. I wonder if she's ever had a proper thankyou delivered to her, or if she's ever even dealt with courtly life. She didn't seem the type.

People like me had been raised on the stuff. My family was actually descended from nobility, though we'd lost the fortune and therefor power several generations ago. My father was the one trying to build it back up, with the hope that our family could reenter the court. And that meant Amber and I where, to an extent, being groomed. It was actually pretty run of the mill proceedings as far as court intrigue went.

I didn't really ever want to be involved in politics, and I don't think my father does either. But father does want to run his own corporation. And that means power. And the more power he can leverage in court the more maneuverability he has for his business.

But Malory didn't understand any of that. She was just your average girl, living her average life. In a way, I envied her.

"Uh, you know actually" she said snatching her hand back, "you really shouldn't be thanking me yet, we still have to catch our thief"

I pinched the bridge of my nose, still fighting off that headache. "Malory we've already talked to everyone and then some, what more is there to do?"

"Well, we haven't searched the teachers' lounge yet"

"…no"

"Oh come on! It's the only place to look for clues."

"No." I started to walk away from her, intending this discussion to be over with. But of course Malory just jumped right in front of me.

"Look, I'll go. That way if something does happen they can't blame you any further"

"I'm not letting you do that!"

"But I'm offering-"

"That doesn't matter! I'm not risking your expulsion as well"

"Come on, even if I get caught the worst I'll get is detention. Trust me, I've done this before"

"You've what?"

"Well- I mean not at this school obviously, but…look it's not that big a deal!"

"Malory" I groaned, squeezing my eyes shut and pinching the bridge of my nose. "Look, I appreciate what your trying to do here, but _please_ do not trouble yourself further with this. I'll figure out a way to handle things"

I opened my eyes expecting another argument from her. I was not expecting to see her running away from me and back towards the school at full tilt. Wait a minute. I felt around in my pocket, the pocket I'd just put the keys in, the pocket that was now empty.

"Malory!" I shouted taking off after her. I was a lot faster than her, but she wasn't above using her small stature to her advantage as she ducked and weaved through the throng of students. I didn't even care about what a spectacle I was making as we careened down the hallways towards the teachers lounge.

I caught up to her just as she was unlocking the door, I had her. Or I did, until she ducked. The arm that was supposed to wrap around her middle flew just over her head as she practically somersaulted inside. The door was kicked shut and there was the clicking sound of a lock falling in place. Gods dammit!

* * *

"And, huff, she's, huff, _safe!..._ huff"

Wow could that boy run, I couldn't believe he'd actually caught up to me. I was no athlete but my life had taught me how to kick it into high gear when the situation called for it.

I leaned against the door just panting for a moment. I could hear Nathaniel jiggling the handle. I think he was saying something to me too, or he could just be cursing under his breath, who knew.

What I did know was that now I needed to search for clues.

Five minutes later and I was still searching. Geeze what a boring teachers' lounge we have, and seriously who picked vomit orange as the furniture color? The microwave looked like it had had more than one lunch explosion in it, and I'm pretty sure that coffee table is being held together by cellophane. Man the next time I hear a teacher complaining about budget cuts I might actually believe them. Seriously Sweet Amoris was supposed to be one of the best schools in the country, and our teachers didn't even have a working coffee pot. The box next to it labeled 'confiscated' was kind of interesting though.

I don't find anything and am about to write it off as a lost cause when I spot a cheap looking bracelet near one of the chairs. It doesn't look like anything one of our teachers would ware. I pocket it. Mostly I just don't want to go back empty handed to Nathaniel, because then he'll get that whole see-I-was-right face.

I heard the door click and open. Uh-oh.

"What!? What are you doing here?"

Oh joy its crazy mccrazypants principal. Quick: fight or flight instinct, now's when you kick in. Just, don't make me punch the teacher. You made me do that last time, and seriously it didn't work out. Also let's avoid kicking.

"LEAVE IMMEDIATELY" she shrieked, "IMMEDIATELY!"

Flight instinct, activate!

I hurried passed her and out the door. I fully intended to just keep going till I hit the courtyard, and maybe even passed that, but a pair of hands grabbed my shoulders and changed my trajectory.

It was Nathaniel. He steered me into a secluded part of the hallway and then immediately began drilling me.

"What were you thinking? Do you realize how lucky you are?"

"I'm fine, stop worrying. I didn't even get a detention"

"As I said, do you realize the kind of luck you have?"

If I had any kind of luck to speak of I probably wouldn't have been caught in the first place.

"I found this" I said hoping to distract him from the lecture he no doubt had been working on. I held up the bracelet for him to look at, "do you recognize it?" I asked.

His face took on a confused expression, "yeah, but…I can't place it"

I pulled out another object from my pocket while he looked the bracelet over. Nathaniel didn't notice what I was doing until a bubble literally popped against his nose.

"What…is that?"

"Elementary my dear Watson, elementary" I said blowing more bubbles out of the toy pipe I'd found in the confiscated box of the teachers' lounge. They flew about us in little rainbow orbs, popping at random intervals and occasionally sticking to our clothes.

"…you're going to be playing with that for the rest of the day aren't you"

"Now you're catching on"

* * *

During lunch we questioned everyone again, only this time on whether or not they'd seen anybody wearing the bracelet before. Malory continued to play with her pipe, and it both annoyed and amused me. I was still royally screwed if we didn't figure this out and that had me constantly stressed, but I think I was keeping it all together mostly because I knew that we we're doing _something_. Even if it was just following a random, probably useless lead.

We'd eventually talked to everybody, and unfortunately we had no answers. But I just couldn't shake the feeling that I'd seen that bracelet before.

"Maybe if we asked the teachers if they've ever seen it?" Malory was saying. "It's possible. Mr. Firaze seems like the kind of guy who would try to win over his students by complimenting them on silly things like this…maybe". Malory was mostly thinking out loud at this point. I think her enthusiasm for this project was beginning to wane as even she realized how pointless this whole endeavor was.

She had followed me into the lunch line as she continued to spout her theories. I mostly just let her. The morning and the fact that we were at another dead end were beginning to weigh on me too.

We reached the end of the waiting line and I grabbed a tray before heading into the kitchen area. Malory's out loud thinking suddenly stopped. I glanced at her and saw that she was staring at the kitchen wide eyed. Looking back I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. The chefs were all behind their stations, the salad and fruit bar hadn't been tipped over or anything, the coffee stand had an incredibly long line behind it as usual.

"What?" I said.

Malory seemed to come back suddenly. She shook herself, mumbling "nothing" and shuffled closer to me indicating that I should keep going.

It was then that I noticed the simple paper bag clutched in her hand. I'd never even thought about it before that Malory brought a bag lunch to school every day. Sweet Amoris was one of the more elite schools in the country, and even though it was technically a public school, it didn't stop parents from making massive 'donations' to ensure their kid got at the top of the enrollment list. Even the town we we're based in catered to an expensive lifestyle. So while it wasn't completely unheard of to see kids who brought bag lunches, it still wasn't considered common. And for Malory to have only a simple paper bag, it just seemed so…ordinary. Which was not a word I would ever use to describe her.

I got my lunch, an Alfredo pasta with fresh garlic bread. She followed me around to the various stations as I got myself a salad, a side of fruit and a glass of milk and a glass of wine. Amber and I were allowed to have a bit of alcohol with our meals thanks to our family standing, it was actually kind of expected of us that we would.

As we went, her chatter began to slowly start up again, which I have to admit I was kind of glad for. This whole possible expulsion thing was already making me extremely unnerved. And having her uncomfortable was not helping my comfort. By the time I'd ran my student credit card through the machine she was even back to blowing her bubbles.

We sat down together, which got us a few looks, and several students even relocated to different tables. Everyone probably thought we were about to have and eating competition or something. I couldn't exactly blame them for the assumption.

Malory didn't notice, she was too busy going over my 'notes' occasionally commenting on what a terrible Watson I was. I was again examining the bracelet. Something about it was just so familiar.

And then it hit me.

But…no, it couldn't be…she wouldn't…would she?

"Malory?"

Malory looked up, she was in the process of correcting my notes.

"I need you to do something for me" I said, trying hard not to gulp.

* * *

Gods what a day that was. I still can't believe Amber did that. I mean yeah Nathaniel can be a pompous ass sometimes and I'm sure having him as a brother must be a never ending trip in frustration, but _still._ He didn't deserve that. Amber has been petty and obnoxious to me since I got here but what she did to her brother today was just plain mean.

I'd gone to confront her in one of the classrooms while Nathaniel stood just outside the door listening. The look on his face afterwards was…bad. Thinking about it made my stomach knot up again.

After that the day had gone on relatively normal. I'd hung out with Iris and Rosayla during study hall. Lysander lost his notebook again. I caught Castiel smoking and took away his cigarrete. I hadn't seen Nathaniel or Amber once, even though I had several more classes with each of them.

I shoved the rest of my things in my backpack and slammed my locker shut. I couldn't wait to get home and to just make some tea and relax. Maybe read a book.

"You! Don't move!"…or not.

I turned around, only to see Amber coming at me in a fury.

Oh no, fight or flight, fight or flight!

She came right up to me and shoved me, hard. I fell back against the lockers with a thud, the noise attracted people's attention and soon we had a little ring around us of onlookers.

"All of this is your fault! I hope you're happy, I've been suspended for several days! You better watch out, you are going to regret it when I get back!"

She jabbed me hard in the chest with each sentence. Fight instinct stay back, she's not worth it.

"You're the one who brought this on yourself" I shouted. No bad mouth, keep quite.

"Wh- _what_?!" she shrieked. " _That's it!_ You're going to regret this right now!"

She drew her hand back and I had a brief moment to marvel at just how many rings she wore as they sparkled in the florescent hall lighting. She's going to slap me…she actually going to slap me!

My instinct was to throw one arm up to shield myself while the other delivered a well-aimed jab right to her nose. But right before I brought up my fists I shoved the urge back down.

Just take it, I told myself. Let her do what she wants. You like your life right now. Sure it's not perfect, but there's a roof, and its dry, and you even have an actual bed, and there's food, really good food. Yeah you still miss of few meals but that's mostly your own fault. And while your place isn't spotless it's clean, your bathroom door actually has a lock on it, and you've got a toothbrush that's all yours! _Don't ruin this!_

I braced myself for the slap, I can't imagine that Amber really knows how to throw any weight behind it, so the worst thing that will sting is my pride. But then a shadow suddenly passed over me.

My vision was completely taken up by the back of Nathaniels prim-press white button down. He was standing directly in front of me, his broad shoulders shielding me from his enraged sister. I was still pressed up against the lockers so I couldn't exactly move or see around him. But I could hear him.

"What are you doing now!? Dammit Amber I am fed up with your antics, you are going to calm down right now and go straight home. Got it?!"

Everyone in the hall was speechless, I don't think any of us have ever seen Nathaniel like this before. I couldn't see his face yet even I could tell how livid he was. He grabbed Amber by the arm and steered her away. She didn't say anything obviously too gob-smacked herself. The throng of students quickly parted to let them pass and it was only then that I remembered I was supposed to say something.

"Th…thank you" I called out meekly. But I don't think anybody heard me, certainly not Nathaniel.

Everyone awkwardly looked between me and the retreating blondes. Slowly the crowd began shuffling away and I joined them in it, carefully avoiding eye contact. Now I _really_ just wanted to get home.

All my hopes of a simple quick, walk back to the apartment were dashed however the second I stepped outside.

It was pouring.

Big globs of rains pounded against the pavement, and with just enough wind behind it that every now and then a gust would throw the rain horizontally at you. Kids were hurrying to cars or busses, and occasionally a parent would step out with an umbrella guiding their child into their heated dry vehicle.

I shivered.

Dammit, I knew I should have warn my thicker jacket today. Looking up I squinted at the sky trying to judge if I should stay at the school for a little while in hopes that it would get better. But really, it looked like a full thunderstorm was brewing, so I should probably get out of here before it gets worse.

Sighing, I shuffled my way over to the nearest trash can. I quick poke about and I got a handful of three or four school newspapers. If I hurried they would be just enough to act as an umbrella until I got back to the apartment. Glaring at the sky and cursing my luck, I set off.

To think I'd actually been in a good mood only ten minutes ago.

At least we found the exams and Nathaniel managed to get them back in the teachers' lounge. If he's lucky and plays his cards right the principal might even apologize for yelling at him and try to find a way to make it up to him. He could probably wheedle a new filing cabinet out of her, he's been complaining about the student councils clunky one since I got here.

…Nah.

Even with that little display with his sister, I still knew that Nathaniel was too nice and possibly too much of a dolt to ever attempt something like that. He's all mister altruistic and do right by others, and no don't stand up for yourself it might _gasp_ offend someone.

Don't know why I even bothered helping him today. I guess I kind of just felt bad for him. He's always helping others but, honestly, in the whole time I've been here I don't think I've seen anybody help him. Like really help, not just sorting out files like Melody does or bringing him to the nurses like Lysander did that one time I put a plant in the student council room that he was allergic to. (In hindsight that had actually been pretty funny). But people honestly helping him with big problems, things that weren't just a common cuortesy or a nice gesture, actual this is bad we're in the shit, problems: haven't seen anyone help him with those.

I guess I just hate to see anyone in a sink or swim situation. Especially when they're trying to swim but nobody's bothering to throw them a damned life raft.

Because one thing I have to admit that I kind of like and maybe even admire about Nathaniel, is how he never gives up. That boy would do paperwork until his eyes bled if he felt it was important enough. And with his sarcophagus today, I have to acknowledge that it was pretty damn impressive. Anyone with eyes could tell he worked his butt off for that thing. It still wasn't as good as my project of course, but it was a close second. I wonder what he's like in Kendo? Nathaniel definitely seems like the type who would practice a move over and over until he had it perfect. Maybe there's a way I could sneak into his dojo to watch? I guess I'd have to figure out where the dojo is first.

I suddenly stopped walking as I realized where my thoughts had taken me. Was I seriously considering spending my time just to watch Nathaniel and a bunch of other guys getting all sweaty and smacking each other around with fancy sticks? Ugh, no! Gods why had those thoughts run through my head? I felt ridiculous just with the notion.

I nearly growled at myself as I glared at the sidewalk and continued on my stupid waterlogged walk home. I definitely _did not_ want to watch Nathaniel at practice. So what if he was probably really good at it, and so what if it was kind of cool when he'd kicked that trash can last week, the very idea of watching him _intentionally_ was completely preposterous!

And besides he'd probably make fun of me if I did. Not in a mean way, Nathaniels not like that, but I know exactly what he'd be thinking. He'd think I was some pathetic little girl who didn't have a life of her own so she had to come and ogle all the boys since she had nothing better to do. Well I could think of better things to do then go to some stupid practice!

Then again…maybe if I found an excuse to come to one of his competitions it wouldn't matter. And then I could even see all the good stuff, not just the boring practice moves. I mean, I could have an interest in Kendo right? Or maybe Auntie could.

After all Kendo was a well-respected art here in Frence, heck in most of Eurode. The nobility and royalty still use it to settle impossible disputes, usually not to the death but even that still happens from time to time. As for the working class; the people love it. It's considered a necessity for anybody who's looking to pursue a life in business or politics. And even with all the modern equality and political correctness Kendo is still considered the best and often times _only_ way for a 'commoner' to rise above the ranks.

Now personally I don't give a rat's ass about any of that, but I could fake it _._ Which would give me the perfect reason to go to a competition. And then Nathaniel wouldn't be able to think I was being ridiculous, or…okay no, stupid thoughts, stupid thoughts. I _am not_ considering this.

The image of Nathaniel in full kendo armor, only _without_ the helmet, suddenly popped into my head. My spine stiffened and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Also my face was probably representing a strawberry right now. _Ugh, stupid brain!_

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, a sudden buckets worth of water was dumped on my head as a restaurants overhanging canopy upturned dumping all of its collected rain right on top of me. At least it cooled my face down, also it completely ruined my newspaper umbrella, and my clothes. All the dirt and leaves that it had been gathering up the past few weeks was now dripping off of me.

And because things just couldn't be complete until I was shivering and my teeth were chattering away like a chipmunk, the rain was now hitting me right in the face as I tried to ring out my shirt to the best of my abilities. I could feel the biting cold water soaking into my hair and dripping down the back of my neck like a slimy packet of meat right out of the freezer. I was seriously contemplating using one of my few remaining bus tickets, even if I was already half way to the apartment.

But then…the rain stopped.

"Need a hand?"

I looked up, surprised, to find a large black umbrella shielding me from the weather and a smirking Nathaniel looking over my wretched form.

And my face is red again.

* * *

.

.

.

.

.

AN: So in the actual MCL game I think we can all agree that Candy is a bit of a dunce. I definitely noticed that when revisiting the game chapter this was based off of. My goodness, her logic trail is practically nonexistent. So hopefully Rory came off a little bit more *cough* capable.

If you made it through this, good job. I seriously did not intend it to be that long. But it just. Kept. Going. Originally I wasn't even going to write that whole section of Nathaniel and Rory playing detectives, but then it ended up being my favorite part of the whole chapter. Although I am wondering if it was confusing for people?

Oh and by the way, Castiel is wrong. Oral presentations are important. They're how we learn to do critical thinking and analysis, and are also great practice in self research, and how to properly organize and present that information. It's something you will need in 99% of the careers out there, _even_ a musician. Castiel is just being his usual silly self, and not seeing the bigger picture. And there's your public service announcement for the day. Stay in school kiddies.

Also those of you who are good at keeping track of sequences of events will no doubt have noticed that Kentin was supposed to have left two in game chapters ago…deal with it. I needed to clarify that Malory, while being Candy, is not in the same situation as in game Candy. And therefor her and the little goofball don't actually know each other.

Also random non-sequitur for of the day; do you think I spell gunna wrong? Both Microsoft Word and Google are saying it should be 'gonna'. And I guess that makes sense, it being a reduction of 'going to'. But even though my logic's telling me that that's correct every time I look at 'gonna' all I can think about is gonorrhea. Thoughts?

Anyways, there we go. I don't think it was as good as the last chapter but once again, feel free to leave a review. Seriously they help. And I'm 99.9% certain there's going to be a few grammar mistakes in this monstrosity. I did proof read it, but I needed to publish the damn thing or else I'd just keep sitting on it and fretting over it.

Thank you for your time, and please have a wondrous day!


	3. Chapter 3

An: Ugh, I told myself I wasn't going to respond to any reviews in the author's notes, as I feel it gives the wrong impression about the stories length (and let's face it I definitely don't need to be making this thing any longer), but this reviewer doesn't have an account and this needs to be said so it's going to be said.

Kirsty, you did not, in anyway whatsoever, waste my time with you review. And if anybody ever gives you a flak in response to a review like that then they don't deserve your time, or the opportunity you presented them to improve as an author. I went back, reread and fixed as many mistakes as I could find in chapters 1 and 2 because of you (and I still don't think I got all of them).

Thank you, is what I'm trying to say.

Here's the thing; while I love ff for its simply _amazing_ community, as its nothing but support and well wishes, I do think we are lacking for reviews like Kirsty's. Honest, criticism. The ones that tell us you're good, but you're not as good as you can be, so here's how you get there.

Because you know what, she was right! There were a lot of glaring issues, and I _hated_ that they made the story suffer. The thing is, when I'm editing I'm looking for sentence structure and story flow flaws. This means that things are getting rewritten _a lot._ Seriously I changed the originally written perspectives like six times last chapter. It's also the reason that a chapter gets posted when it's probably not quite ready, simply because I know myself, and I know that I will just keep changing and changing my writing forever unless I suck it up and just post the damn thing. Unfortunately this means that grammar suffers. But that's on me. And something _I_ _need_ to work on as a writer.

Anyways to everyone else who reviewed, thank you! You guys made me look like an idiot at work this month because every time I felt down I'd pull out my phone to read the wonderful things you wrote and then I could not stop grinning like a loon the rest of the day.

You are all to blame.

.

.

.

Chapter 3

No one Understands!

The car ride to Kendo was proving to be one of the tensest family moments to date. The second Father had come to pick us up, Amber blurted out that she'd been suspended and that she didn't want to talk about it. But she was glaring at me, so it was made pretty clear to Father that it was my fault. I tried to meet his gaze, knowing how he hated it when I slouched, but just one look at the scowl he was sporting had my eyes shooting to the pavement. If it wasn't for Kendo I'd probably already be at home paying for this.

No one said a word the entire car ride, aside from Father grumbling about the extra stop. Usually I'd just walk to practice but with the awful weather and the need to keep an eye on Amber I decided to catch a lift today. I was seriously regretting that now.

My stomach kept bunching itself up in knots with every sharp turn Father took. He was seriously working himself up and if it wasn't for Amber being here he'd probably already be screaming at me. And I just knew that while I was at practice Amber was going to be ranting and raving to our parents about how unfair it was and how it was all my fault.

I stared out the window trying to calm down, it wouldn't do to show up a nervous wreck. Sensei Isadora had the uncanny ability to read people, and she'd already commented more than once on my apparent anxiety.

Amber was huffing next to me, and I was mostly ignoring her, trying to space out to help myself calm down when I noticed something in the rain. A ridiculous notion then popped into my head and before my logic center could kick back in I was already opening my mouth.

"Sir?" I said.

Father glared at me through the rear view mirror.

"You don't have to drive me all the way to practice. I can walk from here so you and Amber can head straight home". I held my breath, praying that he wouldn't start yelling about my ungratefulness or something. But then he grunted and pulled over, probably happy to be rid of me for the short while.

I quickly got out, grabbing my things and an umbrella. The Royce sped away before I'd even reached the curb, but I hardly noticed. I was already hurrying to catch up to the object of my distraction.

"Need a hand?" I asked a waterlogged Malory, holding the umbrella out to shield her from the weather.

She looked up at me with big rounded eyes her shock clearly evident. I couldn't help but smirk, knowing that I'd surprised her. Even though I owed her one, I still didn't like her. And yes, it was juvenile, but it was also a little cathartic knowing I'd unbalanced her.

But a moment later she came back to herself and scowled, "So…what, you're stalking me now?"

I rolled my eyes. Of course the first thing out of her mouth was something glib.

"Call it revenge for the day you just put me through" I said.

"Pfff, the day I ' _put you through'_ I'm sorry but who save your pristine presidential butt today? Oh that's right, _me._ I take thankyous in the form of either cash or check, but gift certificates to Thinkgeek are accepted as well. "

I just gave her a look.

She glared at me, "…you've been hanging around Lysander haven't you?" she said shrewdly. But, before I could answer, she'd already turned around and began walking away. "Go on, get your immaculate official ass off to kendo or whatever. I can find my way home on my own, thankyou"

A car came speeding by. I noticed the large puddle of water just as the wheels hit it, throwing up a huge wave right towards her. Malory squeaked and jumped, throwing her arms up in a vain attempt to shield herself, but she needn't have bothered.

I was already there with the umbrella out and shielding the both of us. At worst, our pant legs got a little sprayed.

"Did you just squeak?" I asked, unable to keep myself from teasing her.

She just glared up at me, her cheeks turning a light pink from embarrassment. She huffed and began walking again, but she didn't tell me to get lost. So, seeing as that was as a good an invitation as I was probably going to get, I followed.

I held the umbrella over both of us as we walked side by side. We didn't say anything for a few minutes, and that was fine by me. I'm not really sure what I should be saying to her at a time like this anyways. But I did need to say something for what she did today. Thankyou maybe? It was the obvious choice, but common sense never seemed to get me far when Malory was involved. I'd already given her a formal thankyou when she'd found the keys for me today and I should do it again as it would be proper, but it didn't seem to resonate with her earlier and I don't think it will do any better now. But to give simple verbal praise about how much she'd helped me today kind of seemed like a sappy thing to say (which she would tease me for), while at the same time not being enough to say (which she would also tease me for). I still didn't like her, and I'm certain she still doesn't like me, so it's kind of odd trying to be amicable towards each other. But our usual biting banter wasn't exactly appropriate at this time.

So I opened my mouth, ready to just get it over with, when she started the conversation instead.

"Aren't you going to be late for practice?" she said, while looking at the pavement. She was trying to be casual. Smart move on her part, I could give her that. She was opening the conversation with a question that was in peaceful waters. I just needed to reciprocate, and keep myself from getting annoyed when she inevitably felt like being clever and said something to piss me off. But, if we're careful, very _very_ careful, we just might be able to get through this without arguing.

I shrugged, "not really. I'm usually pretty early anyways." Alright, so far so good. Now for a simple question that I could ask her, "what about you? Any plans for the evening?"

She bristled beside me. "I've plenty to do" she blurted out. "Um, in fact I'll probably busy all night. You know with…baking." She picked up her pace a little, I don't think she noticed she was doing it.

I wonder if she knows what a bad liar she is. Oh well, not my problem or even my concern what she does with her free time. Like she said, no need to worry. Still, it was kind of rude to just brush me off like that when I was clearly trying to be amicable. Gods was this girl frustrating. I rolled my eyes and decided to be nice and play along.

"Do you like to bake then?"

"Uh, yeah kinda, really the only reason I know how to is because of…mom". Her pace sped up just a little more.

"Okay. Have you and your mom been cooking together for a long time?"

"What? Uh… _yeah._ Yeah, for like, forever. In fact, she's so excited about the kitchen at our new place. It's massive and has a big reach around counter, and, all the appliances are new, and…yeah"

"Well, good. I…take it you and your family are settling in well then?"

"Oh _definitely_. The apartments great! We've each got our own rooms and uh, there's this massive bathroom, and _I've_ finally got space for all my books, so…so it's great!"

"Right…well, glad to hear it"

We fell silent again. Wow this was hard. I don't have any idea what to talk about, and apparently I was just making her feel awkward by trying. But I needed to do this. One more attempt:

"So….you like mystery novels huh?"

That seemed to do it, her pace slowed back to normal and she shrugged. "Bout as much as anything else I guess. I like books."

No surprise there, she always had one out at the start of class. Even when she was too busy competing with me to be reading, there was constantly a novel present right on the corner of her desk. I've never actually bothered to check the title of any of them, too focused on the obnoxious girl reading them I guess. But apparently we shared a few favorites.

"What else do you like to read?" I asked, still trying to keep the easy atmosphere but also a little curious.

Malory gave me a sideways look, "why?" she said slow and suspicious.

I rolled my eyes, "I'm _not_ trying to start a competition with you Malory. I'm just asking."

She continued to look at me suspiciously but she did answer, "sci-fi mostly, and fantasy, historical fictions good too, but you can get a lot of pompous know-it-all authors who don't actually know a damn thing with those. Slice of life stuff is alright I guess, I've been forced to read a lot of those. Unfortunately they've also got a lot of annoying authors who try to be all philosophical but usually they just end up sounding like morons trying to shove their world views on you…what about you?"

She asked the last bit kind of awkwardly, but well, I guess she was trying too. We could do this.

"Well detective novels and mysteries obviously. Honestly I don't have that much time for reading. But fantasies okay too".

There was another pause in the conversation as we both searched for something to say.

"You ever read the Dresden files" Malory finally blurted out.

"No".

"Oh…well, there kind of like mystery fantasy stories. There pretty good. The main characters funny."

I nodded, "I'll give them a look".

There we could be friendly. She'd even recommended something she thought I might enjoy. Then again, this _was_ Malory, so there's a good chance she was telling me about something awful in the hopes that I would waist what little free time I had on a senseless story. Well, actually no she wouldn't do that. Because than she'd risk looking ridiculous herself for telling me she liked the thing. Maybe I really should give those books a look.

We we're quite again the only sound coming from our trudging sloppy footsteps and the occasional car speeding by. A shudder ran through Malory's tiny frame and I suddenly became aware that she didn't have a jacket. Granted I didn't have a jacket either and I felt fine, but the gentleman's code forced me to ask:

"Are you cold?"

She looked at me sideways. "And if I am? S'not like there's anything you can do about it Blondie."

I took a deep breath. Don't get antagonized, don't get antagonized, I told myself.

"I was just wondering if you'd like to walk a bit faster?" I said evenly.

"Want to get rid of me that bad huh?"

"That's not-"

"Why are you helping me?" she suddenly stopped, crossing her arms and turning to face me full on. "If this is some kind of misguided gentlemanly thankyou crap you're trying to pull off, then don't bother. I don't need it".

"Malory, its _poring_. And yeah, I am kind of trying to say thank you."

"I swear if you try to bow to me again-"

"I was just being proper."

"How is that proper? Just because you bow and use a bunch of fancy words doesn't make it any more significant. Admit it, you we're just being faultless mister perfect, showing off what a noble do-gooder you are".

"That had nothing to do with it! Is it really so hard to believe that I'm just trying to be nice and walk you home?"

"From you? _Yes!_ I don't _want_ you to be nice to me. _That's_ not how things work between us. You are not nice to me and I am not nice to you. End of discussion, there is no more, moving on". She turned on her heal and stormed out from under my umbrella, her soaked converse making silly squelching sounds rather than the resonate thuds she was probably going for.

"If that's true than why'd you _help me_ today?"

Her spine stiffened and she spun on the spot, her mouth opened and closed like a fish a few times, "I…eh, that's….that didn't mean anything. It was just, with Lysander, and…and Amber…and… _SCREW YOU!_ "

She turned again shoulders hunched and hands balled into tight little fists.

"Malory, _Malory!"_ I ran after her and tried to hold the umbrella over her again. But she jumped to the side and when I moved with her she did it again. Gods she was infuriating.

"Don't bother, we're practically there" she said.

"That's not the point, would you just. Hold. Still!" we hop-scotched around each other a few times, as she absolutely refused to let me help her. I was starting to get pretty wet myself as I tried to reach the umbrella out over her and had therefor given up on keeping myself covered. It didn't help that every time one of us stepped in a puddle we threw up a splash coating the bottom of our pants with muddy water.

" _Look_ ," she shouted, still dancing out of my reach, "you want to say thank you. Fine, you just did. So we're square, I free you of any bizarre obligation you think you might have".

"I'm just trying to walk you home" I seethed.

"That's my building right there!" she yelled throwing her arms up to the side.

I blinked, surprised to see that the big tan building was indeed right there. We'd been circling around each other in its parking lot.

"…at least let me walk you to your door" I said, refusing to let her win the argument.

"What? _No!_ It's right there!"

"Exactly. It's right there so it's no trouble"

"You're gonna be late for your stupid kendo and I'm sure perfect little top grade student wouldn't want to disappoint _mommy and daddy_ , so just _fuck off_!", she turned and walked quickly away from me.

I felt my blood boiling. That. Girl. Had to be the most obnoxious, crass, pig-headed, foul, little _bitch_ I'd ever had the unfortunate pleasure to encounter. I turned on my heal ready to do just what she said. Screw it, I was going to kendo.

But-

…But, she still saved me from expulsion today. I had no idea why she did, probably for some selfish reason that furthered her goals, but she still helped me. I sighed and turned around again to follow her.

She got to the buildings main door and yanked on the handle, only all it did was rattle in place. Malory groaned and banged her head against the locked door. It allowed me time to reach her and hold the umbrella over her again.

"GAH!" she shouted, turning and flattening herself against the plexiglass, "what is wrong with you? You can't come in!"

"I just. Want. To say. _Thankyou."_ I grit out. If I could just say this properly, than I could get the hell out of here and I wouldn't have to worry about her anymore.

"Haven't we been over this all ready? Gosh prez I knew you were behind me in brains but I didn't think you were _that_ slow"

"Were you born this obstinate or do you have to work at it?" _Shit_. I didn't mean to get nasty, it was beneath me. But dammit if she wasn't asking for it.

"Actually, it's a gift" she said all false sweetness, "and I save it, _just for you"._

You know what, screw it, and screw her. "Ah so you're saying you save up all your little childish tantrums just for me? Wow I'm so honored".

"Gah! You think you're _so_ _perfect_ don't you! Well I've got news for you button-down, you just wait until midterms!"

"Oh please, you haven't even started studying yet. Too busy running around pulling irresponsible pranks with Castiel, and getting mixed up in ridiculous problems with the school".

"You don't know that!"

"Actually I do Malory, because every time you do one of your rash immature stunts, guess what, I have to file the paperwork. I mean _really,_ staking out the school for a ghost? Sneaking up to the roof with Castiel on your _first day?_ And do you really expect me to believe you behave any differently at home? Gods your parents must have ulcers from the amount of stress you put them through".

Her face turned beat red as her eyes bugged out in shock. "SHUT UP!" she yelled, and suddenly her hands where at my chest pushing me hard. It was more surprise on my part than any strength on hers that propelled me back a couple of steps.

Malory stood there fists clenched and teeth barred, "You better enjoy that top of the class spot now, cause come midterms your gonna have to explain to mommy and daddy how you got bested by the kid who's only been here for three months. Meanwhile _I'll_ be out celebrating with _my parents!_ "

I grinded my teeth, working every bit of control I had to keep my voice level. "Is that a challenge Malory" I asked.

"Bring it, blondie" she seethed.

"Fine."

" _Fine!"_

The door suddenly opened, nearly banging into Malory and startling both of us. The little old lady I'd met last week when I walked Malory home poked her head out. "Dearie, I thought I heard you" she said, "I'm afraid Mr. Biken forgot to unlock the door again, so if you see anybody trying to get in be sure to come open it for them. Oh hello there, your Nathaniel aren't you?"

"Uh…hello" I said, now feeling very awkward. It suddenly occurred to me what a spectacle we'd been making. My gods we'd been out here yelling like a couple of bad tempered hooligans. If my father found out about this…

"So nice of you to walk our young Rory home again," the old woman said, "would you like to come up for some cookies? I timed them so that they'd be done just as Rory was getting home" her many wrinkles crinkled as she gave me a pleasant grandma like smile.

"He was just leaving," Malory bit out, before stomping past the woman and inside.

I bunched my hands at the edges of my pants to keep one of them from coming up to rub awkwardly at the back of my neck. "Um, thank you for the offer ma'am but I'm afraid I have practice to get to" I gave her a quick informal bow, and turned on my heel to get out of there. I could hear her little old voice as I left commenting 'what a nice young man'.

* * *

I stomped through the lobby my shoes going _schlop schlop schlop_ on the carpets. Two of the Agnilli boys and their youngest sister Adillina where playing pick-up sticks, and they all quickly jumped out of the way when they saw me coming. I made sure not to stomp on their game at least but I think my trailing wet jean bottoms might have knocked a few sticks loose. I didn't care.

"Bad day?" Old Mr. Whickam said as I passed him and Mr. Martel playing chess.

"Gahhh!" was all I answered stomping past them and up the stairs.

I couldn't believe _him!_ He was just so, so…crap there weren't words for it! I couldn't stand him. Him and his oh so grown up _maturity,_ and his gentle wonderful _kindness,_ and completely, overbearing, never lets up _perfectness_!

I was so frustrated it took me three tries to unlock the apartment door. See what you make me do you bastard! I slammed the door behind me and started hopping around on one foot to yank off my soaked shoes, nearly losing my balance as I violently ripped them off.

I hate him. I hate him, and his words, and his hair, and his grades, and everything about him. I. hate. It.

I wrenched my backpack off, and the stupid _fucking zipper_ would not open! I could barely even get a grip on it with my fingers so cold they couldn't grip anything and the metal being slick from the rain. Finally it tore open, it also tore off.

"ARGH!" I yelled throwing the useless metal nib across the room. My books and papers where then dumped uncaringly onto the kitchen counter as I shook the bag vigorously up and down, up and down, and even after it was empty I just kept going till it was banging against the counter, nocking papers and pencils everywhere, making thumping sounds as my hands started to pound the counter as well

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" I growled with each shake.

"RRRRRR!" I turned and threw the bag as hard as I could, clipping my elbow against the counter top and hitting my funny bone in the process. I didn't care. I just stood there seething as the bag plopped unsatisfyingly against the wall and fell to the floor.

Stupid. He doesn't know anything. Just because I'm not perfect like him didn't mean I was broken! I'm not! It wasn't my parents fault they couldn't handle me. So what if I stressed them out, they still loved me. They just had to do what was best for all of us! And it wasn't because I'm some kind of broken little freak!

 _I'm not_.

"I'm not broken" I said out loud as if that would make it more true. But that was stupid, I didn't need to make it more true. I already _know_ it's true. So it's stupid. It's just…all a bunch of stupid. "'Mm not broken" I mumbled again anyways.

I stood there for a few seconds just glaring pathetically at the floor. I'm glad Auntie wasn't here to see all that. With a sigh I went to pick up my backpack and shoes. They both would have to go downstairs to the basement so I could throw them in the dryer, but that could wait. Still, best to get them off the carpets for now.

I wanted to just curl up on the couch and glare at a book until the words started making sense and I could lull myself through reading. But that would mean soaking up the cushions and therefor Aunties bed.

I took everything with me to the bathroom and let it fall in a wet soggy heap on the floor next to the shower, I could at least wash my backpack off while I showered so that it doesn't smell like gutter water. I stripped my sodden clothes off and dropped them in the pile while I waited for the water to heat up, and waited…and waited.

Crap. The hot water heater was broken again. For a minute I stood there stark naked and shivering. On one hand I could put my soaked clothes back on, grab the tool box and head down to the basement to fix the heater. On the other hand that meant even more time spent looking and feeling like a drowned rat.

Aw, screw it, I've had way worse. I jumped in the shower letting out a small yelp even though I knew how cold it would be. I quickly scrubbed myself down, and did the same to my backpack while I waited for the conditioner to wash out of my hair. Thank the gods I keep it short.

Slipping on the wet tiles and banging my knee on the toilet as I jumped out I cocooned myself in a towel and simply stood there for a moment praising Auntie for her love of fuzzy warm fabric, even if it was an insufferable purple with happy yellow fringes.

I left my wet pile to be dealt with later and shuffled out of the bathroom. There was a plate of cookies on the coffee table that I hadn't noticed earlier. A note next to them read ' _Sweetie, something came up at the hospital so I might not be home until tomorrow. Be sure to eat supper (a proper supper), and don't forget to water the plants in the morning. ~Agatha'_.

I grabbed the plate happy to have an excuse to not visit Mable. It's not that I didn't like the old bat, I just don't really feel up to dealing with anybody right now. And I don't think anybody will want to deal with me either.

I went back towards the apartment entrance and opened the coat closet door. I walked straight into a hanger, nearly poking myself in the eye, just like I did every other time I came in here. I figure one of these days it will stick that I need to duck when entering. I shoved aside the few shirts and pants that I kept on hangers halfheartedly, my other hand swatting around for the light switch, and when I found it the Christmas lights that had been strung up along the corners flickered to life. I shut the door behind me and plopped my butt down on the small mattress that covered most of the floor, leaning back against the far wall. I didn't feel like digging around in my big tuppaware bucket for any clean clothes so instead I just shuffled further into the fluffy towel that was still draped around my shoulders. Stacks of books and a few cd's took up the rest of the floor space but none of them caught my interest at the moment. Not even the giant penguin poster that took up most of the ceiling helped my mood. But my eyes did catch my reflection in the small cracked mirror that hung on the wall.

I looked like complete crap, and I refused to acknowledge the puffiness around my eyes. Quickly I scrubbed at my face, I wouldn't cry because of that bastard. I refused.

Nathaniel didn't know anything. My parents we're gonna love it when I became top of the class. He'll see. And he'll just have to tell his parents that-

…

I didn't know what Nathaniel's parents we're actually like but the image of him explaining that he was no longer the perfect top student to a pair of teary eyed forlorn blonde adults didn't make me feel accomplished like it was supposed to. Instead it just made my stomach drop. I mean, I know grades are important to him, and I guess…there not really all that important to me. So does that mean he deserves them more?

I looked again at my face and made a scowl. Did I look like that when I was yelling at him? I remember his angry face, his eyes squinted and his lips pressed tightly together. Even when enraged and arguing with the girl he can't stand he still holds his tongue and keeps his anger from boiling over. Today was honestly the first time I've seen him be more than just irritated, or exasperated, or just plain tired with me. I really did manage to piss him off back there, and in true Malory fashion, I couldn't even remember what exactly it was I said. Words just came out, and I wasn't paying attention to them beyond seeing what kind of reaction they could get out of him. I know I insulted his intelligence, and…I'm pretty sure I insinuated that his parents only loved him based on that intelligence.

Which…I guess is kind of mean. But he was being mean too, so…so there.

I glared again at my reflection, then I took the mirror down and turned it backwards.

"Stupid" I mumbled.

Then balling up in the towel a little further I started eating Aunties cookies. I didn't really taste them though.

* * *

"Nathaniel! Nathaniel I give! _I give!_ "

I stabbed Johanson one more time with the practice sword just as Dillons came charging at me from the side roaring like he was some mighty warrior from ancient folklore. I easily sidestepped him and smacked my wooden sword across his back sending him tripping with all his momentum. That just left Felicks, I heard him trying to silently come at me from behind. Turning and raising my weapon I caught his sword as he brought it down like an axe. I threw his attack to the side and tried to step in but he quickly backpedaled away from, nearly losing his balance but catching his footing and righting his stance just out of my reach. Of the three, Felicks was the only one who had any competence in Kendo. He raised his sword back to ready position and I did the same.

There was a brief pause, just long enough to suck in a quick breath and then he came at me. I saw where he was going, saw where his sword was going, and I saw where he was going to leave an opening. In a step and lunge, I ended it.

Felicks dropped to his knees both hands going to his rib cage, "owww" he groaned. I honestly hadn't meant to jab him _that_ hard, but really what did the idiot expect running at me like that?

"Um…Nathaniel?" a hand lightly touched my shoulder.

I whipped around ready to defend against the next attack. Mica quickly back peddled from me both hands up in surrender. "I come in peace!" he blurted.

For a very brief moment I thought about attacking him anyways. Mica was tied for second best in our class, so I knew he could take it…probably. But almost immediately my logic kicked back in and told me how immature and senseless that would be.

I huffed, lowering the practice sword and yanked off my helmet, ripping out a few strands of hair that had gotten stuck in it. I still had a boundless boil of frustration stewing in my gut and I wanted to take it out on something.

"Are you okay?" Mica asked, cautiously approaching me but wisely staying out of immediate attacking range.

I opened my mouth to answer but a harsh curt voice called out from the side of the practice mats.

"Blondie take five. _Now_."

I sighed and turned to face Sensei Isadora. The nearly sixty year old woman stood tall with her feet apart and her arms crossed, her sharp hawk like gaze penetrating right through me. "Yes master" I said respectfully, holding my hands to my sides and giving her a proper bow.

Mica followed me off the training mats and to the side of the giant dojo where the bleachers where kept. They were mostly only there for performances but a gaggle of girls sat together in a huddle on one of the bottom sections. One of them suddenly jumped up saying "go get 'em Jeremy!" and clapping her hands. But then she quickly shut up and sat down when Sensei Isadora's eyes snapped to her.

This dojo was owned by a handful of courtiers and backed by several business men, and they _loved_ it when people came to watch practice. That didn't stop my Master from exacting retribution when she felt that someone was interrupting however.

Mica and I went to the far side of the bleachers, away from the cheerleading girls, and hiked our way up to the top tier of seats. It was only practice so only three sets of bleachers had been extended from the wall, unlike during tournaments where this entire side of the gym was covered in spectators and all sixteen bleachers where drawn-out to compensate.

We sat silently for a few minutes drinking from our water bottles and watching Sensei Christopher try to instruct his pre-k class how to properly grip their practice swords. Usually I enjoyed watching the three and four year olds as they spent more time chasing each other around and playing with stuffing that came out of mat rips than they did practicing kendo. But today not even their adorableness could lift my bad mood.

"So…you going to tell me what's wrong?" Mica asked.

While I got along with just about everyone in class, Mica was the only one I would really consider a friend. Not that I could ever let my parents know that. With his sandy colored hair covered in beads and pulled back in dreadlocks and the piercing over his left eyebrow he looked more like a beach bum than an heir to a minor lordship.

"It's been a long day" I said, not looking at him.

We watched three of the children start an impromptu summersault race. None of them had much control over where they were going and one slipped of the 18 inch high mat while the other two collided with each other.

Mica let me brood for a minute, but as usual he didn't allow me to stew for long. "This about that Malory girl again?" he asked.

Just hearing her name sent my blood boiling. How dare she, _how dare she_ insinuate that my parents only cared about me based on my performance. Yes, they cared that I got good grades, and _yes_ they cared that I did well in Kendo, and yes, they cared that I always upheld the family honor and behaved civilized, unlike her the ridiculous, callous, insufferable-

"Do I need to get away from you right now because you're getting that face again" Mica said, already leaning an inch or two away from me.

"I don't have a face" I snapped

"Yes you do, you just keep it well hidden under the mask. But it's there. Scowling away."

"…sorry" I mumbled, looking down at my clenched hands and willing them to relax. "And how do you know what I look like under the mask, they completely cover our heads".

"I wasn't talking about the Kendo mask"

I didn't know what to say to that so I didn't say anything. We both sat in silence again. It was long past our five minute break but Sensei Isadora didn't look like she even remotely intended to call us over any time soon.

I sighed. "Yes, it's Malory".

"Did she call blondie again? Whys that bug you so much anyways, Sensei does it all the time. Hell I do it."

"I don't know, it just does. But that's not it, well, okay she did call me blondie again and that certainly didn't help. But that's not it"

Mica just watched me.

I took a deep breath and gave him a recounting of the crazy day I'd had. Starting with the principal yelling at me. I told him about Amber, and about all that wasted time on my Egyptian project, and about playing detective, and finally I told him about Malory's and I's argument.

"I just can't understand that girl" I said running a frustrated hand through my hair. "I was just walking her home, helping her stay out of the rain and she completely throws it back in my face".

Mica raised an eyebrow at me, "what's so hard to understand? She didn't want you to walk her home, it's that simple"

"No it's not. Nothing is simple with her! I was just trying to be a gentleman and be _nice_ but apparently that wasn't good enough for her!" I threw my head back and took a chug of my water bottle to keep myself from grinding my teeth together.

Mica sighed, then looked me in the eye to make sure I was listening. "Okay, Nathaniel, how did you feel when she first started helping you look for your keys?"

"What does that have to do with her being pig headed and blowing up at me?"

"Just answer the question"

I shrugged. "I don't know…weird"

"Kind of awkward huh?"

"Yeah I guess"

"Okay so think about how she must have felt when you tried to help her. Weird and awkward I bet."

"That's not…it's different. I was just doing the right thing. And not because I want to rub it everyone's face that I'm all noble or whatever" I glared at the ground remembering Malory's accusation of me being Mr. perfect. I hated it when she said that. I wasn't perfect, far from it in fact.

Mica blew out a breath, "look, I only have your account of this girl to go off of, but from what you've told me it sounds like she doesn't like _anybody_ helping her. She's more of a stand on your own two feet girl than some quietly suffering little Cinderella waiting for prince charming. And to have _you_ , her rival, trying to fill in that gallant save-the-girl prince roll, well I bet that threw her for quite the loop. I know I'd be suspicious if I'd been in her position".

I didn't have an answer to that. Well okay I did, but everything I wanted to say sounded childish and petulant even in my head, so I kept my mouth shut.

Mica blew out a breath, "Sensei's waving me over. Don't forget to drink some water. And the offer to my birthday party this weekend still stands. I don't care if you have to stage an elaborate escape from the library, you're coming okay"

"I told you. Midterms. I have to study"

"Don't wanna hear it man. Your coming" Mica said, waving over his shoulder as he descended the stairs.

I went back to watching the children but I wasn't really seeing them. I guess Mica had a point. I'd been pretty resilient to Malory helping me today, and I still wasn't sure that she wasn't trying to play some kind of angle. But I'd honestly just wanted to help her and give a proper thankyou this afternoon. But if I was suspicious, it makes sense that she'd be too.

That's where the argument started but as for where it went-

I dropped my head already feeling a scowl coming on. After I smoothed my features back to normal and was certain I could keep them there I looked up again.

She didn't have a right to say anything about my parents that was true, but…I suppose that means I didn't have a right to say anything about hers either. I almost winced remembering her shrill voice when she told me to shut up. I guess I'd hit a sore spot.

I sighed. It was a stupid argument.

Tomorrow I'd apologize and maybe finally give her a suitable thankyou…maybe I'd start by telling her I had no ulterior motives. She wouldn't trust me, but she might at least permit me to finish speaking before she said something biting and snarky. Actually, it would probably be best if she does try to say something clever and crass, that way we can just go back to the way things were with our rivalry and it will all be okay…and I'll know that she's okay.

Confident in this course of action I stood to join the class as Sensei Isadora called us all for the usual end of lesson wrap up. But half way down the stairs one of the entrance door banged open and I felt my stomach drop to my shoes.

There stood my father, his usual scowl in place. My mind started trying to make sense of his sudden appearance. Why was he here, he _never_ picked me up from Kendo.

Unless I was _really_ in a lot of trouble. What had Amber been saying to him?

His eyes roamed the gym landing on me almost instantly. Like the rest of our family, father was well practiced at keeping his emotions hidden. To anybody else nothing in his demeanor changed, but I saw the slight squint of his eyes, and the nearly imperceptible tightening of his jaw.

My stomach would not be coming back out of my shoes any time soon.

* * *

"This day sucks" I said to no one in particular. Auntie hadn't come home last night and I being the horrible gardener that I am, had overwatered several of the plants this morning. Actually a few more than several, it was more like all of them. I hadn't noticed until the pots started leaking out their bottoms, soaking up the carpets.

Castiel chuckled beside me. "What's got your panties in a twist? It's not even first period yet".

I groaned, plonking my head down on the picnic table he, Lysander, and I were sitting at.

"I've go' gym f'rs" I mumbled into the wood. Amazingly they both understood me.

"Worried about messing up your pretty hair" Castiel said, placing one if his giant hands on my head and twisting it around messing up my hair. I just let him, not even bothering to lift my head. I didn't care, I'd felt sick this morning and I hadn't even bothered to brush it. It was too short to get all that tangled anyways. I also didn't feel like eating breakfast and my stomach was _still_ twisting up in knots which meant gym was going to _suck_. "At least it's our short day" Castiel said, pulling his arm back. His words didn't help.

"Also with Amber suspended she won't be able to bother you this morning" Lysander commented. That got me to perk up.

"Oh yeah I forgot about that" I said. Suddenly my morning wasn't so bleak. It was still crappy but the next two hours wouldn't be spent in their usual Wednesday misery at least. Amber took a particular amount of joy in teasing me during gym. It didn't help that Mr. Boris hated my guts seeing as I'd been my usual charming self when I'd first met him. In hindsight I guess he was just trying to be nice and welcoming but seriously the dude was weird. Anyways, I'd been black listed in his class since day one and while I don't think he intentionally ignored what Amber was doing, there was still no way he'd be helping me if I complained. Not that I ever would, that would mean admitting I needed help with the pom-pom haired princess, which I didn't.

2 hours later I was regretting my earlier optimism. With Amber gone, Li, Charolette, and Capucine had taken it upon themselves to act in her steed and exact revenge. I was _still_ picking gum wads out of my hair.

"Ow" I mumbled when someone bumped into my sore shoulder, "ow" and when someone hit my other shoulder, "ow", in fact my whole body was just a splotchy mass of bruises. Its official I hate basketball. The three witches took advantage of the class to chuck big orange balls at me from all directions. It wasn't that I was uncoordinated, or even all that bad at athletics, but when you've got three projectiles being hurled at you from various angles the fact of the matter is, you're not going to block all of them. Li kept tripping me, either with her legs or by throwing a ball at my knees. Charolette actually having some physical prowess, would hip check or flat out ram into me. Mr. Boris praised her for her competitiveness. Capucine can't throw for shit, but she still made out to be a pretty annoying little gremlin by sneaking around behind me and bouncing the ball of the back of my head whenever I wasn't looking. We were on the same team for gods sake!

So yeah, I may have, kinda, sort of, tackled her after the fifth time she did it. Mr. Boris had not been pleased, especially when I pinned her shoulders and hocked up a good loogie. Yeah, I had to clean the whole gym for the rest of class, and give up my fifteen minute break to keep cleaning, but honestly; totally worth it.

Especially now when I walked into chemistry and Capucine shot me a glare with one eye. The other she was still rubbing trying to get any residue saliva out of it apparently. I smirked at her. Totally worth it.

Li and Charolette also shot me a glare, more intense than they should have been, in fact they should be acting all superior seeing how they'd been giggling when Mr. Boris tried to ream me. I say tried because really I can't take anything that man says seriously. But what could I have possibly done in the five minute walk from the gym to the second floor science room?

They couldn't have found out about the couple of cheese whizzy cans I had hidden above the shower stalls could they? Every now and then I'd been poking the nozzles through the grates in their lockers and spraying everything inside down with hickory flavored goo, but neither of them are intelligent enough to have found out about that. And I knew it wasn't on Capucine's behalf that they were suddenly so pissed.

But then I caught Kim's eye, and she nodded her head at the two and then gave me a wink.

Having friends. Was. _Awesome_. I can't believe I've never tried it before. I smiled at her as I took my seat at the front of class. Pulling out my science journal, textbook, and my current novel I set it all out on the table. Now that I was in a better mood I really wanted to read another chapter in my book, but I probably should go over my notes before class started, especially because my lab partner was-

"Good morning Malory"

And there goes that good mood. I peeked out of the corner of my eye up at Nathaniel as he set his fancy expensive book bag down.

"Morning" I mumbled at the table, quickly grabbing my notebook and flipping it to last week's notes. I stared down at the neat little writing and only kept myself from fidgeting through sheer willpower. Nathaniel sat down neatly next to me, unclasping his book bag and pulling out his own notes.

We sat in complete and absolutely awkward silence for the next five minutes. Well awkward for me. Nathaniel looked as calm and composed as ever every time I glanced at him out of the corners of my eyes. Oh dammit he was sitting up straight while I was hunching over like a hag. Okay okay I could fix this. Don't straighten too fast it will look weird. Just casually lean back to look over your shoulder and say something to Iris, and when you come back forward just make sure you don't slouch. You can do this. Casual, _casual!_

"So I'd like to apologize" he suddenly said.

"Huh?" I jerked in my seat half way to turning around when my head quickly snapped back to him. Okay so this was the opposite of casual.

"For yesterday" he said, crossing his hands on the table and looking down at them. He took a breath and turned those golden eyes on me and I felt myself gulp. "It was insensitive of me not to consider how you must have felt about my help. Also I should not have attacked you so verbally. And I assure you none of what I'm doing now or what I was trying to then has some kind of catch. I just want you to know that I was wrong and that I apologize." He said it all clearly and evenly spaced, none of his words stringing together, and no uncomfortable nervousness in his tone at all.

I was still twisted around half way in my seat and looking at him over my shoulder.

…"Huh?" it was all I could say.

Nathaniel sighed. I don't know if he intended to say something more or just ignore me now that he'd said is peace, but then Mr. Humbelburg came waddling into class all nervous and squealy voice as usual.

"So sorry I'm late class!" he said hurrying his oversized girth to the front of the room, his rotund belly managing to bump Lysander's notebook off the table as it bounced by. "So sorry!" he said quickly, just like he did every morning when he inevitably nocked into someone or something. There was a reason I called him Mr. Bumbleburg behind his back.

He got to the front of the class and turned to us twiddling his fingers, "well, uh, welcome back students. I, uh, I _hope you all did your homework this weekend_ ", his voice went an octave higher before he coughed and settled it back down. "Let's see now, um, we, we were…" He looked to the black board and his tiny little eyes behind his coke bottle glasses darted around the equations on it. He got even redder and it was obvious to me he didn't remember what it was we were studying or what we were doing today. He never did.

"Mr. Humbelburg do you think we'll need gloves for today's experiment" Nathaniel said. Leave it to the student body president to save the teachers ass.

"Ah yes! That is correct Nathaniel" he said pointing at the boy, "If you will all form an orderly line at the cabinet, only one person per table is needed". Mr. Bumleburg said trying to seem as if he were in charge as everyone jumped from their seats and all but ignored him.

"I'll get them" Nathaniel said.

A shuffled and kicked my feet a little after he left. I still felt really off from his apology. What was I supposed to say back? I'm sorry too? But I wasn't…I think. Well okay, yeah I had gotten kind of mean, and I'm guessing that's at least playing a part in my twisty stomach, but that could just be because I'd gorged on cookies last night. Really I'd been _a lot_ meaner to people before and none of that had ever bugged me, so why would it now?

Crap he's coming back. I hurriedly started arranging the lab equipment that was already on our table so that I didn't look like I was slacking off. Nathaniel sat back down and handed me my glasses.

I took a deep breath. "Thanks" I said. There, that wasn't so hard. Maybe if I just pretended nothing happened this would all be okay! ... I could dream at least.

Mr. Bumbleburg was already scurrying about the classroom worriedly as people started lighting their Bunsen burners. I lit ours while Nathaniel grabbed a beaker and opened the hydrogen peroxide. Wait a minute, why was he measuring out that compound? This experiment didn't call for it.

"What are you doing?" I said, grabbing his wrist to stop him.

"The experiment" he said, it sounded like he wanted to add a 'duh' onto the end of that.

"Then why are you using hydrogen peroxide, we don't need any" I said, trying really hard to keep my own 'duh' out.

"Ummm, yeah, we do. That's what the H2O2 stands for. It's not water. That part comes later."

I felt my eye twitch, "I know what its chemical compound is and _I know_ the H20 comes later. But you're mixed up, it's not H202 it's Hg2+"

"Why would we need any mercury, that's ridiculous. And why did you turn on the Bunsen burner?"

"Because that's the experiment we're doing prim-press!"

Mr. Bumbelburg waddled back to the front of the class, seemingly a bit more at ease. "Now if you all do the experiment properly" he said, "you should get a nice bursting effect".

Nathaniel and I both turned to each other at the same time, "See!" we said, making Mr. Bumbelburg jump at our insistant voices.

"Malory, I'm not messing up this experiment for you" Nathaniel said, "Did you not do the homework. It outlines the chemical equation."

"Uh, _exactly!_ And I know there's a lot of H's in it, which apparently confused you, but I guarantee there is no hydrogen peroxide!"

"What are you two gabbing about?" Castiel asked from his seat at by the window our left, leaning around Lysander to look at us.

"He's/She's got the wrong equation!" we said at the same time.

"There's math in this?" I heard Iris asking.

Nathaniel stood up, stepping around our table and Mr. Bumbleburg and grabbing a piece of chalk.

"Look, you see this" he said writing out a brief equation involving Hydrogen Peroxide and Potassium Iodide. "The hydrogen peroxide is decomposed by the iodides ion, that's what causes the oxygen to form so rapidly. Right Mr. Humbleburg?" he looked to our teacher who still stood there.

"Um, w-well I suppose-"

"That's all great" I said standing up myself, "only we're not using either of those!" I walked to the blackboard as well, Mr. Bumbleburg quickly jumped out of my way and then shook his head back and forth between us with wide round eyes. I grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote down my own equation. "See!" I said, "It's the heat that causes decomposition in the mercury. Right Mr. Bumbleburg!"

"It-it's not bumble its-"

"What are you talking about? Where did you even get that equation?" Nathaniel said.

"Me! Where'd you get yours? Did you just pull a random one out of the book?"

"It was on the blackboard last week, if you had actually bothered to pay attention you would have seen that. Right Mr. Humbleburg?"

"Ah, well-"

"The blackboard equation was just an example Blondie. The equation we were supposed to use was on page 265, right Mr. Bumbleburg?"

"I, um-"

We both looked right at him, as did the rest of the class. I was _certain_ I was right. Mr. Bumbleburg was gonna say it was my equation in two seconds and then I could stick my tongue out at button-down and everything would be back to normal.

Mr. Bumbleburg stuttered, taking small uneven steps backwards, until he bumped into Nathaniel's and I's table, "I don't, well you see, I uh, I-it's just t-that, well b-both of you, I…um…

 _I DON'T KNOW OKAY!"_

Everyone jumped as our typically stuttering quiet teacher shouted at the top of his squeaky lungs.

"I don't know!" he said again, "I don't know any of this stuff. I barely passed my own high school chemistry. I didn't even make it through college. My _mother_ got me this job! I just take my lectures right out of the book, and _pray that nobody notices!_ I don't remember what we did last week. I don't know what I told you to do for homework _"_ he wailed.

We all stared at him wide eyed and gob smacked as he literally started sobbing, throwing his belly and arms across Nathaniel's and I's table and things. Note to self, burn all of that. But then he turned around focusing his little walrus eyes on Nathaniel and I. "AND you two! You had to go and be _smart_. You couldn't just leave well enough alone and be normal uncaring teenagers!"

"Mr. Humbleburg Nathaniel said carefully, standing up straight and taking a cautious step towards our teacher, "I understand that you're under a lot of stress. But perhaps it would be best if I took you to the teachers' lounge to-"

"Nooooo, you don't understand" he moaned, "none of you understand!" he whirled around facing the rest of the class, nearly clipping Nathaniel when he swung his plump arm around. "You with your perfect young adult lives, you don't know what it's like! You don't know what you all do to me! Like you!" he said suddenly pointing at Violet. The poor girl starred back wide eyed like a little rabbit. Don't move Violet, it can't see if you don't move! "Always with the doodling" Mr. Humbleburg was saying. "The never ending doodling, it's like you just want to rub it in my face that you have a talent! And you two" his eyes darted between Rosa and Lysander, "the fashion this, fashion that. It's all, will this look good with my hair, and what color laces should I use. And I know what you think of me. You think that youre better than me because of my khakis! You don't think I can pull fashion off! Well I can, I can be just as-just as- _just as HIP_ _as you can!_ And YOU!" he pointed at Iris, " _why does hair have to be orange?!"_

"I-what?" Iris stumbled out.

"Your hair." He said taking a few lurching steps towards her "It's so bright and orange. Every time I turn around I think you've somehow managed to set yourself on fire!"

"Okay" Castiel said, slowly standing up, "as much as I hate to agree with Prez maybe we _should_ get you to the teachers' lounge, with a nice cup of coffee-"

Oh crap. No Castiel don't mention the coffee machine in the lounge, its-.

"NOOOO!" Mr. Humbleburg said whipping around towards the red head. "Don't you see? _It's broken!_ It's been broken, just like my life." He grabbed his face and started sobbing again. The whole class exchanged several looks, some of us shrugging, some trying to sink beneath their tables, some just starring in petrified shock.

Castiel swallowed and tried again, "Um, maybe-"

"And you" Mr. Humbleburg jumped up and pointed at Castiel, "you're the worst of all, why can't you come in late to _my class?!"_

"…what?" Castiel said completely dumbfounded, I think we all were at this point.

"Oh don't play coy with me! I know you come late to all the others teacher's classes, that is if you come at all! But no, you're nearly on time here, making me look even _worse!_ Don't you have the decency? Can't you at least come in after me?"

Nathaniel looked over his shoulder at me and our eyes met, our very shocked confused eyes. "Is Castiel getting berated for being a halfway decent student right now?" he asked.

"Yeah, I think he is." I said, "So…we've officially entered the twilight zone I guess"

"AAAAHH! No shut up! I can't- _I can't do this!"_ Mr. Bumbleburg shouted. He turned towards the big open windows and quickly wobbled towards them like a charging hippo.

Crap was he going to-

"Castiel stop him!" Nathaniel shouted, running after our teacher.

But Castiel was closer. He jumped around his table and wrapped his arms around Mr. Humbleburgs giant belly just as the man took a leap at the window.

Castiel must have stopped him because Mr. Humbleburg only got half way out, his size filling up almost the entire frame with his sausage legs kicking as he tried to wiggle his way out.

"He's too big!" Castiel said, unable to get his arms around our teachers many layers of fat.

"Then grab his shirt" Nathaniel said, reaching for a leg just as Lysander went to grab the other side of Mr. Bumbleberg.

"No I mean" Castiel started saying, then he let go stepping back. Mr. Humbleburg didn't budge, "he's too big for the window".

Mr. Humbleburgs legs kicked fruitlessly a few more times before he apparently gave up and went limp.

"Oh…um" Nathaniel regarded the massive body in front of him, with obvious confusing on what to do next. The three boys looked at each other over our teachers butt. They glanced around at the rest of us, then once more at each other, then as one turned back to our teacher. Lysander grabbed his chin, Castiel scratched his head. Nobody said anything. I don't think any of us know what to at this point.

Finally Nathaniel let out a long suffering sigh and took charge. "Lysander, grab a leg" he said, "Castiel get a hold of whatever you can to help yank him through". Together it took them four big tugs to pull our teacher back through…and he was sobbing.

His arms shot out grabbing hold of a startled Castiel's shoulders. Poor Castiel looked back at the man wide eyed and completely flabbergasted. He kept a hold Mr. Humbleburgs forearms, probably worried the man would make another swan dive attempt. But Mr. Humbleburg just kept sobbing, falling to his knees at Castiels feet, "why doesn't she love me?" he moaned, "the only light in my life and she _rejects_ me. Do you think it's my hair?" he said looking imploringly up at Castiel.

"Uh, I don't know, maybe?" Castiel said.

Wrong thing to say apparently as Mr. Humbleburg let out a great wail and buried his head in Castiels stomach.

After a pause, Castiel awkwardly patted his back "uh, there…there" he said, "plenty of fish in the sea, right? Um…"He gave Lysander an imploring look, but the singer just raised his hands in a 'what do you expect me to do' gesture. Nathaniel was pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head.

But then seeing as nobody was paying attention Mr. Humbleburg suddenly shoved Castiel away, causing the boy to land on his butt with an 'oof'. The walrus jumped up and barreled past the boys nocking Lysander down as well and skirting past a startled Nathaniel before he could grab him, and then he came…right at me.

I jumped back in shock but he just shoved past me and I only fell against the blackboard. Nathaniel reached me and froze, and when I looked up I saw why. Mr. Humbleburg had grabbed the fire extinguisher from under his desk and he was pointing it right at us.

"None of this would have happened if _she_ hadn't shown up!" he said, jabbing the nozzle at me. " _She's_ the reason you started acting the way you do!" his eyes flicked to Nathaniel but the nozzle still pointed at me. I knew it didn't hurt. Logically, there was no way the foam could hurt. But logic had sort of flown out the window ten minutes ago in this classroom and I really didn't want to test if it still applied to the fire extinguisher.

"You two with your _brains!_ It all would have been fine if you hadn't started trying to best each other and show me up! It's not _my fault_ I'm not that smart! Why do you have to remind me?! It's not _fair_!"

"Mr. Humbleburg…" Nathaniel said cautiously, holding his hands up in a non-threatening gesture.

"SILENCE!" he shouted, flipping the safety tab off.

I had just a moment to suck in breath of air and then something was wrapping around my middle and yanking me back. Nathaniel turned me around and bent over me, my back to his chest and his back to Mr. Humbleburg, just as the fire extinguisher went off. I squeezed my eyes shut expecting it to be cold or fizzy, or…something.

Only nothing hit us.

I opened my eyes just as a white foam covered Mr. Humbleburg went streaking past us, towards the window, and _out_ the window this time, the foam making him slippery enough to wiggle through.

There was a moment of stunned silence.

And then chairs were scraping back as everybody jumped from their seats and rushed to the windows, myself and Nathaniel included.

We all watched as a foamy Mr. Bumbleburg rolled himself out of the giant Hydrangea bushes and went running across the lawn, waving his arms around, and alternating between maniacal laughter and even more sobbing. Mr. Faraize and the principal came rushing out of the front doors, our principal shrieking "Milton! What are you doing!" She turned to Mr. Faraize, "stop him!"

"W-what!? How?"

"I don't know, just _stop him!"_

So then Mr. Faraize started chasing around Mr. Humbleburg and trying grab a hold of one of the chemistry teachers flapping arms.

Mr. Boris came out the gym doors, and with more screeching from the principal, (who was now acting like an anxious Mexican jumping bean on the front steps), he too gave chase. A confused Jade stepped out of the green house and nearly had a conniption when he caught sight of the Hydrangeas. More windows we're opening and the noise of a hundred muddled conversations began filling the air. Mr. Humbleburg took this as an opportunity to start shouting at everyone about whatever oddly perceived flaws he felt we all had.

"Well" Castiel said as Mr. Boris lunged and wrapped his arms around the chemistries teacher's legs bringing them both to the ground, "enjoy this Prez because it will be the one time I ever compliment you". He slapped his hand on Nathaniel's back, "way to go, you sent our chem teacher into a nervous breakdown. I don't think anybody could have pulled this off but you two" his other hand landed on my head and ruffled my hair. The thing about Castiel; this was actually a compliment for him.

He went back to his table and grabbed his things, obviously please that he could go home even earlier today. Slowly everyone began to shuffle away from the windows and follow suit as Mr. Humbleburg was half led half carried to a bench, the principal shrieking at him the whole time.

Nathaniel and I looked at each other sideways. I know I wanted things to go back to normal between us, but crazy insane ludicrous Sweet Amoris High normal was not exactly what I meant. Oh hey look the paramedics are coming.

Beside me Nathaniel groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose.

I don't know if it was the familiarity of that gesture or just the stress of the whole situation finally catching up to me but I couldn't help but let out a small laugh. Nathaniel glanced at me, his eyes questioning what I could possibly think was so funny. I shrugged in a 'what can you do' manner, before a few more giggles escaped me.

Nathaniel let out an exasperated breath and shook his head, but just before he looked away I caught the trace of a smile on his lips.

* * *

.

.

.

.

AN: Soooo…would you believe I was shooting for five thousand words on this chapter? (She said 50 thousand characters later.)

I only intended to have the walk home, the fight and a bit of their inner turmoil. But I _really_ didn't want to end on a sour note. Even though Drama is one of the story tags on this, and trust me there's going to be _a lot_ of that later, I still would like to keep this in relative 'feel good' waters for now. So I added the chem class and nervous breakdown bit...and I just realized that I consider a mental collapse to be considered feel good. Hmm…

Anyways, I would just like to say that emotions are _hard_. Important but hard. Writing the fight between Rory and Nathaniel was pretty difficult and despite taking three or four cracks at it I still don't like it. The writing needs to flow but at the same time arguments are anything but smooth and when you have a character like Malory, elegance has already gone out the window. But I'll admit it was good practice so even if it's not all that great I'm still proud of it.

Also, randomness: if you all notice, I am now writing 'gonna' with that O. I did check on google how to spell it, and it said with an O but that technically gonna's not a word. So I also asked a friend of mine who majored in Latin and minored in English (real quick, can we all just celebrate this particular friend who found an _actual job_ that's not teaching using that degree?) and she said that while technically yes it is O, language is also ever evolving and because of the way we pronounce the O as a U it can also be considered acceptable to spell it as gunna. Because…English that's why. _But_ upon further contemplation I have decided that while gonna looks weird to me I think that gunna looks weirder to a lot more people.

And one more thing Kirsty pointed out: I literally sat on my bed giggling when I realized that I've been spelling Mr. Faraize's name wrong. But come on he has a silly name, and he is silly person. Quite frankly I think we should just call him Mr. Frizzlepants. I mean he's kind of like a cat, you know that awkward one that your friend has, that is really clingy, but it keeps tripping over itself as it tries to do graceful cat things. Like when it's coming over to you for cuddles but then you move and it's like _retreat_ , and then it flops all over itself trying to run away. That's what Mr. Faraize is like. Actually you know what, this is a thing now. Mr. Firaize well henceforth be Fr. Frizzlepants in the author's notes.

Next chapter will be less heavy as these two goofballs clumsily skirt around each other trying to properly apologize for their behavior. They're good kids, they're just idiots. Blessed, absurd, intelligent, idiots.

Thank you for your time, and I hope you have an astounding day!


	4. Chapter 4

AN: Reviews! I has them! Seriously, you guys are awesome.

So is anybody surprised that this got super long? I ended up breaking it into two chapters. But that does mean that chapter 5 is practically written. There's just one more section I want to add and then I need to proof read the thing, so it should be out some time next week.

.

.

.

Chapter 4

Sesquipedalian

I really, really, _really_ didn't want to go to school today.

After Mr. Bumbleburg got carted off by the paramedics yesterday, Mr. Faraize had come rushing into the chem lab and told those of us that still remained to stay put. Then principal Shermansky came in and demanded to know what exactly had happened…que awkward pause. _Of course_ it was Nathaniel that eventually gave her a complete and succinct rundown of events, after which he left with the principal to speak with some cops or to fill out paperwork or something. I'm really not sure where they went as I couldn't understand a word of what the principal was squawking, but Nathaniel seemed on top of things and knew what needed to be done…which kind of makes me wonder how often things like this happen here? Anyways, Mr. Faraize sort of tried to keep the class going but even he realized that _that_ wasn't going to happen, so he released us an hour early out into the wide open world.

I went back to the apartment, made some tea, did my homework, went to the basement to fix the hot water heater...again, ate dinner with Auntie, had another argument with her about the bedroom, had a mini nerf gun war with her about the bedroom, took cover in the coat closet (not the bedroom) and stayed there, therefor winning todays argument about the bedroom, read a book, got distracted by a couple dozen cat videos on youtube (the only case in which I actually like those flea infestations), and crawled into bed.

I hadn't thought I was having any issues, I really did think I was fine. But…I couldn't sleep last night. I kept thinking about Nathaniels apology, and how _completely_ unexpected it was. And then I kept thinking about how I hadn't said anything in return. Should I? I mean I know that'd be the _polite_ thing to do, but Nathaniels and I's relationship didn't involve a lot of politeness…at least not on my end. But should it? That didn't seem like a thing rivals did. But Nathaniel had a way making animosity polite, which was weird, and it made him weird, and it made me _feel weird_. The jerk.

I wanted to just write his apology off as him attempting to be Mr. Moral Paradigm Perfect Goody-Two-Shoes again, but… I honestly don't think that was it. I mean, he seemed _sincere_ , and I didn't know what to do with that!

So here I was walking to school the next day, tired from the lack of sleep, and dragging my feet because I really, _really, reeeaalllyy_ didn't want to go to school and deal with it all today.

"Hi Malory!" Iris's cheery voice cut into my thoughts as her and Violet came up behind me and started keeping pace. "Did you do the math homework yet?" the red head asked, all chipper, "Because I got stuck on question 4, and the extra credit part completely confused-hey what's wrong?"

"Huh? Nothing." I said, a little stunned. I didn't think I was projecting my mood _that_ much, and I wouldn't really associate Iris with the word 'perceptive'. But now Violet was looking at me with a concerned crease in her brow too.

"I'm fine" I quickly said. I wasn't lying…My stomach was just off today, that's all.

Iris stopped walking and looked at me, "Rory" she said simply. Violet had stopped too.

I fidgeted for a moment, this is _exactly_ what I didn't want to be dealing with. I knew that I was a bad liar but I was always pretty good at covering up my 'moods', so I thought I could at least make it to second period before anybody picked up on anything. And really I figured I only had Lysander to worry about in that class so I'd just planned to distract him by throwing paper wads at him all period, I know for a fact Castiel would join me.

But right now Iris and Violet were looking at me, and school hadn't even started yet…damn.

"I…just have the collywobbles…a bit" I finally admitted.

Violet cocked her head and scrunched her face in confusion.

Iris squinted at me, "Rory, are you just making up words to avoid the subject?"

"What? No! It means butterflies in the stomach" I said.

"Wait, seriously?" the red head asked, surprise clearly evident in her voice.

"Yeah, it's a 19th century word. It comes from colic and wobble, you know colic being intense abdominal pain, usually in reference to pregnancy, so obviously this is a fanciful use of the word, and wobble clearly meaning the unsteady-"I suddenly realized that they were just staring at me.

Oh…crap. I didn't mean to go into encyclopedia mode. I really needed to get a handle on that. I tried to think of something _normal_ to say, but then iris smiled and burst out,

"That's awesome! What other words do you know?"

I was a little stunned, no one had ever taken an interest in my big vocabulary before. I generally tried to hide it because people always just called me a pettifogger, well okay no they didn't because nobody ever knew what that word meant either. Instead they'd called me a pompous jerk, or an arrogant brat, or my personal favorite; a stupid know it all. Which no one ever even realized was an oxymoron.

But here was Iris smiling at me and Violet looking interested with her big eyes, both encouraging me to go on.

"Well-" I started.

By the time we made it to the schools front gates we had decided that Lysander had a lovely furbelow, that Peggy had a penchant for gonzo journalism, that Amber the quean and her jackanapes friends put way too much fard on their faces, and that our entire cultural class was probably going to be nothing but folderol today and that it would therefore be in our best interests to quickly find the rooms vomitory.

"I mean Madam Langster is such a fuddy-duddy" Iris was saying, in reference to our cultural instructor who had a reputation for being stuck up and old fashioned.

"And Mr. Faraize is a bit of a gobemouche for being tricked into helping us today" Violet said.

We all giggled at poor Mr. Faraizes expense who had been both bullied and duped by Madam Langster into helping us with our dance lessons for the next few weeks of culture class.

"Hi girls" Kim sidled up next to us as soon as we entered the courtyard.

"Hi Kim" Iris said, "Say how's your fartlek going?"

"My what now?" Kim raised a disconcerted eyebrow at a giggling Iris.

"Don't worry Kim" I said, "it's the reason you're so callipygian."

"Oh you haven't taught us that one yet" Violet said through her own giggles. Kim just looked more confused.

I explained to them how it basically meant having nice buns, and for Kims benefit I let her know that fartlek meant training regime, not any kind of passing gas. She seemed pleased by the silly, yet sincere, compliment. As we walked through the courtyard and approached the school Lysander and Castiel, who were standing by front steps, took notice of us.

"What are you three twittering about?" Castiel asked, ever the polite one.

"Oh Castiel you're such a hobbledehoy" I said with a smile.

He raised an eyebrow at me, "you just insulted me didn't you?"

"In a friendly way. It's okay, Iris says you're also a goombah," I responded, before turning to the other boy, "but Lysander, you're a bit of a maverick".

Lysander smiled, obviously humoring us, "meaning?" he asked.

"Someone who's outside the box" Violet supplied.

"Ah, well in that case I do believe we are all somewhat mavericks" Lysander said.

Castiel rolled his eyes, "yeah, gods forbid that anybody at Sweet Amoris might be normal. I think our lovely dear principal might just flip her lid for the hell of it if she didn't have some oddball to yell at everyday".

We all looked across the courtyard were Mrs. Shermansky was currently in full on gorgon mode, with her hair going wild, and her beady eyes focused on two unfortunate boys who seemed to have been attempting the beginnings of a tree house in one of the courtyards small maple trees.

"You know, she is a bit of a cockalorum" I said.

Iris turned her head towards me "I thought you said that was a small, haughty, _man_ " she said _._

There was more screeching and we all looked back to the principal who was now yelling at the boys to find some sticks so that they could knock their 'creation' down, only, because Sweet Amoris had an excellent janitorial staff, there were very few suitable sticks to be found. So mostly it was just Shermansky standing there yelling and pointing wildly at the ground as the boys would pick up whatever flimsy twig she'd indicated, only to have her then squawk about how that would never do find another!

"She could pull it off" Castiel said.

I was so focused on the principal who now had the boys throwing small rocks at their tree house that I didn't even notice the footsteps of someone coming down the stairs. That is until Iris's chipper voice broke through my thoughts.

"Oh, hi Nathaniel" she said brightly, "hey, while I remember it, you should know that I think you're an osephalous"

I quickly straightened up and snapped my attention to the blonde that came down the steps and ended up standing between Violet and Kim. My collywobbles were back.

Nathaniel nodded his head in acknowledgment to Iris, "An egghead? Well, because it's from you Iris, I am going to take that as a compliment" he smiled kindly, but he was looking kind of tired so it was just a brief tilt of the lips.

"It was" Iris assured him, giving her own, much brighter, smile. "What's that for" she asked, pointing at the giant wooden bamboo looking thing he held at his side.

Nathaniel raised it enough that we could better see it, and now that I looked I could see that he was holding what was clearly the handle piece of a nearly six foot long practice sword.

"Crap" Castiel said, "Is the principal allowing caning now? She realizes this is just going to make people skip more not less, right?"

Nathaniel sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand, " _no_ Castiel, caning is not suddenly allowed, neither at Sweet Amoris, nor at _any_ school in this country as it is _illegal_."

Castiel scowled and looked about ready to retort but Lysander opened his mouth first, "so why do you have a practice sword with you? Is it one of yours?"

Nathaniel shook his head, "no, it's from the old kendo club that was here several years ago. There's still a bunch of equipment down in the basement, this sword is actually pretty long for me." I looked again at the giant stick, if stood on its end it would be almost a foot taller than me. "But" Nathaniel continued, "I need something to knock down that ridiculous carpentry project those two idiots made over there and this was the longest sword I could find".

He huffed in an annoyed way. I figured it was just because of the tree house and because he had to deal with our mc crazy pants principal but Iris was giving him a concerned look, much like she had to me earlier.

"Hey, are you okay?" the red head asked.

Without even a pause Nathaniel nodded politely to her and said "Thank you for your concern but I'll be fine." His eyes briefly flicked towards me and I tried not to gulp as those golden orbs came my way. And then he was gone, walking towards the principal.

"Jerk" Castiel said, not caring if the blonde was out of earshot or not.

"No he's not" Iris said with slight admonishment, she was one of the few people Castiel allowed to do such things. "He's just…under a lot stress I think" she finished.

Castiel shrugged, indicating he didn't care and walked away. Lysander nodded towards us girls in goodbye and followed him.

"We should probably go," Violet said, "first bells going to ring soon."

"Uh, yeah sure, you guys go ahead" I said, glancing at Nathaniel.

As much as it pains me to admit it, I think I need to apologize to him too. Then my gut would stop being all twisty and things would be fine between us, or well, not fine, but back to normal.

And if I wanted to apologize, I should really just get it over with. Now would be a good time, because I could say it, be done, and then get away. I had better things to do than talk to him and he had better things to do than listen to me.

Violet and Iris exchanged a look, before leaving me with an "okay" and "see you in class".

I took a deep breath, and started walking across the courtyard.

I didn't need to make this complicated. It's not like I had to curtsey or anything…I think. All I had to do was walk up to him and say: I'm sorry too. Simple, easy, no problem. I could do this!

Nathaniel was at the base of the tree with the construction mess in it, the principal was still yacking but it wasn't clear if it was at him, the two remorseful looking boys, or at the squirrels that scurried left and right frightened by all the commotion. Nathaniel eyed the wood, positioned himself somewhat beneath and to the left of it, held the sword at an angle, and then with one fast strike smacked one of the beams holding it up. A loud crack filled the courtyard, followed by a disjointed noise of snapping limbs and smashing falling carpentry as the entire thing came crashing to earth. The principal shut up in her ravings and the two boys forgot to look contrite as they all starred at the broken mess that came down with just one swing.

I however, stopped mid-step and turned on my heel.

Maybe it'd be best to bother blondie later. I mean nothing said that I had to do it _right_ now.

Not that I think Nathaniel would ever hurt me, but I like to think of myself as a somewhat intelligent individual (when I decide to be), and it just doesn't seem wise to bother him when he's so clearly in a bad mood and carrying around a fancy stick that was _literally_ designed to hit people.

Besides, I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities to apologize today.

* * *

Apology attempt #1

…or maybe this is attempt #2. Did my retreat in the courtyard this morning count? You know what, _no_ , no it did not. I didn't say one word to him, so that didn't count. _This_ was attempt #1.

And it would be the last and only attempt, because there he was, getting his things out of his locker. The bell for second period would be ringing any minute now and since we had different classes this period, I wouldn't even have to look at him for the next hour after I got this over with.

Okay, easy, breathe just breathe. Just walk up to him, there you go. Now just reach your arm out and tap him on the shoulder to get his attention, and-

WHAM!

…I just ran into a door.

Or maybe it ran into me. I'll figure out who's at fault once the world stops spinning.

Oh wait…where'd Nathaniel go?...crap.

* * *

 _Real_ Attempt #1

Okay _this_ was attempt #1, there had still been no talking so none of the previous encounters…counted.

We we're in 3rd period 'chemistry', but seeing as our teacher had taken off for the looney farm yesterday, it was mostly a free period. Which made it the perfect opportunity to talk to Nathaniel, especially because he and I sat right next to each other.

He should be coming in any minute now, and speak of the devil, there he is. (I may or may not have been watching the door out of the corner of my eye). Alright, here we go, he's coming closer, breathe.

And-

…where the hell is he going? Why is he sitting with Melody? That wasn't part of my plan! So what if it's a free period, he could still be bothered to sit with me for like a minute right!? Yeah we don't like each other, and okay, yeah, he's probably still mad at me, and yes, I know Melody is his friend. But he could still be polite and say hi to me at least!

…

Gods there was something wrong with me.

Okay, don't panic, I can still salvage this! All great generals are able to alter their tactics based on their enemy's movements.

I got up and made my way to the table Nathaniel, Melody, and Melodies partner: Iris, where sitting at. When I got there I very, _very_ casually ( _I can do casual_ ) leaned on the side of their work table.

"Hi guys" I said.

"Hi Rory" Iris said brightly.

Melody acknowledged me with a Smile. Nathaniel just gave me a nod.

Okay here I go. "So Nathaniel-"

I took my hand off the table to cross my arms, but then my center of balance changed and my hip slipped along the tables side…right along the built in Bunsen burner nob.

"MY HAIR!" Iris shrieked.

…crap.

* * *

"I am _so sorry Iris_ " I said, for probably the millionth time.

We were walking out of the nurses office and back into the hallway. Mrs. Ramsees, the school nurse, had kept us there for the entire period, wanting to make sure Iris was fine. But the only part of her that had sustained any damage was the singed tip of her braid. I still felt awful.

Iris waved away my apology. "Its fine" she said, "no harm done, and I've been needing to get it cut anyways."

"I'll totally pay for it" I quickly said. I wasn't at all sure where I'd get the money, because as I remembered it haircuts could easily be around 40-50 dollars, and the really fancy salons would laugh at anything under 100. But I was terrified that this little incident was going to make Iris begin to resent me, and that she was just too nice to admit that she was upset.

"Rory its fine, stop worrying" Iris laughed, "And my mom usually cuts my hair so it's no big."

I was still fretting as Iris laughed some more but I wasn't so distracted that I didn't notice the blonde over Iris's shoulder, making his way through the crowd and coming right towards us. I quickly made sure to hold my hands at my sides to keep from fidgeting.

"Hello Iris, I came to see if you were alright" Nathaniel said as soon as he reached us.

"Yeah, I'm good. Thanks for putting my hair out!"

"My pleasure" Nathaniel said with a wry smile. Then his eyes bounced to me, still standing frozen like I was some constipated lawn gnome.

I quickly shook it off and stood up straight.

Alright here we go-

Apology attempt #2…well sorta #2, maybe 2.5.

I opened my mouth to finally say-

"Heads up!" someone shouted.

I looked over my shoulder just in time to duck the basketball that came rocketing towards me. Nathaniel managed to duck too, mostly out of reflex.

Iris-

"Well, at least we're already at the nurses office" the singed red head said while she sat on the floor and her eyes rolled around trying to find focus.

* * *

Attempt #...okay is this one 3 or 3.5? Should I just round up to 4?

It was lunch time and I _still_ hadn't managed to apologize to Nathaniel. This was starting to become a matter of pride as well as necessity. I mean, was I really going to just lay down and let the universe foil me again and again? _No_. I was going to do this dammit! So bring it on universe.

As I sat down and opened my lunch bag I realized that someone had decided to dump about five cups worth of salt into the bag completely ruining all the food inside.

Not what I meant universe.

I sighed and rolled up the bag. I had a pretty good idea who was responsible but I didn't have the time or energy to come up with a suitable revenge right now. The best thing to do at this moment would be to follow all that bullying advice I'm always getting and to act like it didn't bother me.

Honestly, the lost food part really didn't bother me. Missing meals was nothing new for me or my stomach. But the prank part of it did bother me. And there most certainly would be retribution for that…later. Right now I need to focus on apology attempt #3. . . 4.

I pretended to be engaged in the conversation Iris, Rosa, and Kim where having but really I was keeping an eye on the food service section of the cafeteria. Nathaniel had a hot lunch everyday, like most everyone at this school, so I just needed to wait for him to come out.

So I waited.

...

And waited.

...

Wait...ing.

...Where the hell is he?

25 minutes before lunch was over I stormed into the student council room surprising just about everyone in there. But not Nathaniel, because he wasn't there either!

20 minutes before lunch was over I clomped into the library, causing all the librarians to 'shhhh' at me, but no Nathaniel.

15 minutes before lunches end, I raced into the gym interrupting a basketball game.

At 10 minutes I was trying wheedle Castiel into checking the boys bathrooms for me.

5 minutes and I was closing my eyes and sticking my head into the bathrooms anyways to shout for Nathaniel because Castiel was a big doofus and decided to laugh at me rather than help me out.

And at 1 minute I finally saw Nathaniel…as he was walking away from me and into class.

…Okay universe now you're just messing with me for your own amusement.

* * *

Apology attempt #...5?

Health class, 4th period. Mr. Lumbean was setting up the projector for some slideshow, but as he was a bit technology impaired I knew that I had a few minutes.

I turned around in my seat to look at Nathaniel who sat right behind me this period.

"Hey blondie" I whispered

He looked up from his book and our eyes made contact.

I gulped, "so I just wanted to say-"

"There we go!" Mr. Lumbean said just as the projector turned on and displayed a picture and side diagram of the most male aspect of the male body. "Oh no, this is slide is for my senior class!" Mr. Lumbean spluttered as he quickly tried to turn the projector off but instead started cycling through various pictures of genitalia.

I didn't say anything. I just turned back in my seat and refused to look and Nathaniel for the rest of the class.

* * *

Apology attempt #5 and/or #6

We we're doing geography and Mr. Faraize was letting us work with our friends on our 14th century maps.

I took a deep breath and walked over to the desks Nathaniel and Melody had shoved together.

"Um Nathaniel, can I talk-what is that?" I suddenly noticed his map, and the elaborate lines he was outlining to crisscross over the many countries.

"Trade routes" he said leaning back and crossing his arms with a confidant air.

"Remember" Mr. Faraize called out, whoever creates the most detailed map, will have it displayed in the hallway".

Blondie smirked at me. Oh it was on!

"Yeah well I'm labeling all the different shires and counties on top of the kingdoms" I said, clenching my fists, and hurrying back to my table.

It wasn't until fifteen minutes later after frantic scribbling that I remembered that there was something I was supposed to do this class.

And then the bell rang.

Crap.

* * *

Attempt #7…I think.

There he is. Okay I'm doing this thing dammit!

"Nathaniel!" I called

"KIKI!" the voice of our principal yelled much louder.

Something took my legs out from under me. I landed on my butt and saw the orange and white blur of a very happy corgi take off down the halls. A very _unhappy_ Shermansky taking off after it and yelling at random students to give chase, one of those students being Nathaniel.

I really hate that dog.

* * *

Attempt #7? #8? Oh screw it, with my luck I'm just gonna say I'm on #13.

An hour into the last period of the day and after the twelfth time I stepped on my partners toes during the dance lesson of our cultural class, Madam Langster finally said we could be done. Mr. Faraize looked happy, my partner, Daniel, looked even happier.

He quickly dropped my hands and scurried to the other side of the room where his art group was gathering. The second hour of class was to be spent "elevating ourselves through creative and imaginative scholarship". Basically it was classical art study, which I was very bad at.

I do think I'm decent at art in general. When living with someone like Auntie that was kind of inevitable. But Auntie didn't really do…traditional. Seriously the only instrument we had in the apartment was a digeridoo, unless you also wanted to count the dozen or so rainbow colored kazoos in the kitchen drawer.

I went to the side of the class that was set up like an art studio and joined Kim and Violet at their table.

The class was working on our midterm projects and the whole room was filled with the usual noise and chaos that came with group projects. I kept sneaking glances at Nathaniel, Melody's, and Capucines table trying to pick my move. Kim rolled her eyes at me, and at one point she even mumbled, "seriously girl?" Violet just giggled.

I stuck my tongue out at them and continued my furtive glances towards Nathaniels table.

Finally, my opportunity came. He was getting up and going for the side of the room that had all of the art supplies. I quickly stood, blurting out something about needing more crepe paper, even though we were doing a sculpture. I think Kim mock saluted me.

I quickly made my way to the other end of the room. I stood right next to him while he was grabbing paint, trying to make myself look busy while I collected my thoughts. All day I'd been rehearsing and revising my apology. It kept going back and forth between , its original 'I'm sorry' all the way up to 'please forgive my callousness kind gentleman', and everywhere in between. And now that I was here, I couldn't get my mouth to work. Should I say it? What if he didn't want to hear it? What if a simple 'I'm sorry' wasn't enough for him? I mean, he had bowed to me with the whole stolen key debacle, so should I be curtseying? What did _he_ consider proper?

While I tried to remember what foot was supposed to go in back when doing an official curtsey, Nathaniel was carefully trying to fit one last paint can in his arms without spilling any on himself. So, without thinking, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, "do you need help?"

Nathaniel looked at me out of the corner of his eyes and for a moment I thought he was going to tell me to get lost, or well, he'd probably say it a bit more eloquently than that. Something like, 'don't trouble yourself, I can handle it', but the meaning would still amount to 'beat it brat'.

Only, he didn't say any of those things. After the considering look he simply nodded and handed me two of the six paint cans. They were heavy, so I wrapped my arms around the base of each of them and held them to my chest, glad that our teacher kept the outsides of the tins clean so that no paint got on me. Nathaniel meanwhile was able to get each of his hands around two handles and carry the four cans easily with just his arm muscles. I huffed and blew a strand of hair out of my face. Stupid male physique.

"So um" I started to say as we neared his table. He looked over his shoulder at me. Damn those golden eyes for being so piercing.

I subtly gulped, but didn't look away "I kind of have been meaning to talk to you".

"Okay" he said as we reached the table and Melody stood to take two of the cans from him. She shot me a look that I couldn't read but I didn't really care enough to try.

I took a breath, faced him fully, opened my mouth and-

Something hard ran into my lower back and my torso was thrown forward…as were the two cans I was holding.

Melody shrieked, jumping away and knocking over one of her own paint cans, which splashed across the table. There were more shouts of surprise from nearby tables and the scrapping of chairs as other people stood too.

When I regained my footing, I looked down into the now empty orange cylinder I'd managed to keep a hold on, my eyes darted to the floor where the other can I'd held was slowly rolling away leaving a sludgy blue trail in its wake. I glanced at the table where the beautiful handmade model of Diala, goddess of peace and serenity, now had wild splotches of paint all over her, the many papers around her quickly becoming soaked in a puddle of paint that dribbled off the table. I even watched those dribbles as they seeped into the grout in the floors tiles. I tried looking everywhere, except for _up_.

Because when I finally did, I immediately regretted it. Nathaniel stood in front of me, his arms held away from his body, his lips pressed together, and his eyes boring into me as if to say ' _really?'_

His perfectly white button down and fancy tan dress pants were now a decorated mess of orange and blue. There was a big smear across the left side of his face that slid dawn his jaw and dripped occasionally off his chin. Several small globs of orange had gotten into his blonde hair making it look poka doted on one side.

The entire room was dead silent.

"Uh…at least they're complimentary colors" I said, trying to smile.

Nathaniel's glare did not falter, in fact I think it got a little worse.

" _Malory!"_ Capucine shrieked from behind me, I looked at her over my shoulder. She was glaring at me through all the red paint that now covered her face and dress. Apparently the can Melody knocked over had sprayed a little farther than I'd initially thought.

I tried to hold it in, I really did, but it was just too funny seeing her like that, and then she had to go and petulantly stomp her foot, and I couldn't help the spluttering snicker that escaped my throat. Yeah, that didn't smooth things over.

"MRS. JONES!" Madam Langster shrieked, her face turning red as she spluttered "you- _you…_ the disrepute, the uncouth, the-the _indecency!_ You will be staying after school! A _nd serving-_ "

"Detention, yeah I figured" I said resignedly, cutting her off before she could begin ranting. The old woman had a tendency to talk down to her young pupils, in a very haughty, you are all beneath me manner. Her eyes narrowed at me, but she didn't say anything, instead huffing off to her desk to fill out one of the detention slips she always kept handy.

Nathaniel, Capucine, and Melody left to get cleaned up, and I spent the rest of class cleaning the area around their table. Madam Langster had called the main office to have a janitor bring me a rag and a bucket of water but nothing else, and I think she took a perverse amount of pleasure in watching me hastily scrub away what I could before it managed to dry. Because according to her, I wouldn't be allowed to go home this afternoon until it was all spotless.

I also tried to salvage what I could of Nathaniel and Melodies project, I suppose I gave Capucines stuff an attempt too but it wasn't exactly my focus. But with ten minutes left of class Melody came back in, and told me to 'just leave it alone', before shuffling me out of the way and cleaning it up herself. She didn't look at me once. Melody and I have always been at least amicable towards each other and we actually get along pretty well. But if there was ever a chance of the two of us becoming friends, it had now flown the coup.

When Nathaniel and Capucine came back (better but still tie-dyed) just as the bell rang, I quickly rushed back to my own table. Kim and Violet shot me sympathetic looks but I didn't want to hear whatever kind things they had to say so I told Madam Langster that I'd finish cleaning up after I went to the bathroom. I shoved all my crap in my bag and darted for the door. Langster tried to stop me, probably wanting to give me that lecture, but I pretended not to hear her over the throng of bustling students.

I really did go to the bathroom, but that was only to hide until the after school programs got underway, since I knew that the student council was meeting today.

After I finally finished cleaning, I spent the rest of the hour in gardening club, helping water the various plants around school. It was just my luck that the student council was also moving around the school hanging up posters, and taking wall measurements or something.

So the rest of the day was spent avoiding Nathaniel like the plague. It was pretty easy to spot him with the obnoxious coloring, so it wasn't too hard staying out of sight. I bobbed and weaved through students, ducked behind lockers, and made sure to always have an exit strategy. (Pretty sure I was weirding Jade out.)

I think it worked, Nathaniel didn't seem to notice me all day. Then again that might have been more in thanks to his effort than mine.

* * *

I saw Malory out the corner of my eye ducking behind yet another group of lockers. All afternoon since classes ended and after school programs began she'd been doing that, which was fine by me, because I didn't want to talk to her either. I'm not exactly sure why she's hiding, rather than coming out and laughing with the rest of the student body. She probably thinks I'm going to stoop to her level if I see her and try to exact some kind of retribution for what she did in cultural studies.

I won't of course, but dammit if the idea wasn't appealing.

As I put in the combination to my locker I heard Castiels barking laughter start up somewhere behind me…again. Every. Single. Time. He caught sight of me he started busting a gut. Apparently my troubles were the funniest thing since Looney-Tunes for him, but what else was new.

Why didn't I listen to my head when she'd offered to help me? Being an idiot, I'd gone with my gut instinct, and given her the benefit of the doubt. Here I thought we were getting past things and moving on and then she had to go and pull _this_. I mean _really_.

I knew she had a penchant for pranks, but they were usually directed at Amber and her friends. And those were relatively harmless. I didn't care how mad she was at me, _this_ was taking things just a little too far.

As I grabbed a book, my arm brushed the inside of my locker, leaving a blue smear of paint in its wake. Dammit, I thought I'd gotten the worst of it all out.

At least the day was finally over.

I somehow managed to keep my arm from slamming my locker shut and turned around to glare at the obnoxious red head still laughing. There was a scathing remark on the tip of my tongue, _at least my dyed mess is an accident, not a purposeful cheap choice of home hair dye. Seriously, what did the box say? Essence of Rooster?_ But, like every other crass comment that came into my head, I held it back, and instead stood straight and merely glared at him.

This got him laughing further.

That's it I'm going home. I'm going home, and changing, I don't care if I'm late for kendo.

I left the school, the sound of Castiels laughter following me till I was out the doors.

I trudged home through the many puddles that still permeated the streets. They reminded me of the rain storm two days ago and I felt the infantile desire to blame the weather for all my current misfortune. If it hadn't been raining, then I wouldn't have felt the need to walk Malory home, than we wouldn't have had our argument, and then she wouldn't have got it in her head to cover me in paint today!

I still couldn't believe she'd done that. It was another case of my logic and my gut telling me two different things. Logically, when a stacked up everything she'd done in the past to Amber, and when I considered how our entire rivalry relationship worked, then yes, this was exactly like something Malory would do. But it still _felt_ out of character. And I'd apologized yesterday so I thought we were good.

I sighed, shaking my head. Maybe it was just my usual goody-goody self expecting the best of people and having it bite me in the ass. Felt like the story of my life some days.

I did my best not to think of anything for the rest of my walk home. I eventually made it to the little forested hill that my community sat at the top of, there was a shortcut through it that let out into a field that connected to my family's back yard. I usually didn't use it, both because I wanted to prolong my walk home, and because it was impossible to go through the trees without getting mud on the bottom of my pants and shoes. But what did a bit more filth matter to me today.

I was soon hiking up the staircase to the second story of the back porch pulling off my dirty shoes when I reached the sliding glass door. I paused to look longingly at the hot tub that took up nearly half the upper deck. It sat 14 people and had the most amazing jets, and the banister around it was intentionally designed to both block the wind and allow a beautiful view of the surrounding valley.

My back _begged_ me to simply skip kendo and relax in that divinely hot water. The muscles had been bugging me all day, putting me in a bad mood since the moment I woke up this morning.

It would be so easy to grab my suit and just slip in. Neither of my parents were expected home for hours.

…

I shook the thoughts away and went inside.

What was I thinking? One of them might come home early, or Sensei Isadora might comment on my absence when my mother made her weekly call to be updated on my progress, any of our houses staff could mention seeing me to my father, heck Amber was home because of her suspension. And with her still peeved at me, there was no way she wouldn't remark on something that could get me in trouble. Ultimately, it didn't matter how my parents found out the result would be my back becoming even _worse_. Sort of counterproductive.

I carefully crept through the house in my socks, not wanting to alert Amber to my presence. I didn't want to deal with her scathing remarks, or the twinges of guilt they brought. I still felt kind of bad about getting her suspended. Yes she deserved it, heck according to the rules she deserved far worse, but I knew that she had simply made a decision with her emotions rather than her head, as she was prone to do. She was mad at me, and she lashed out, and like the crappy brother that I am, I made the situation even worse.

I really had just been trying to teach her that there were consequences for her actions. But when I tried to explain this to father after he'd asked me what I'd been thinking, he had looked at me like I was an idiot.

"Are you really so full of yourself that you think you can laud such things over her?" he said, his eyes blazing. " _You_ are not her father! It is not _your_ responsibility to decide things for her. It is not _your responsibility to decide things for anyone!"_

I winced slightly at his incredulous tone, I'd hoped he hadn't noticed but by the narrowing of his eyes I was certain that he had. I'd taken a deep breath and tried to explain,

"She broke school property" I said, referencing what I had actually gotten her suspended for. Some girl apparently ticked her off by making fun of her hair so she broke the girl's locker door earlier this week. "I'm the student body president. That means that _it is_ my responsibility to-"

"I don't want to hear excuses" Father said with an edge that declared the discussion was over, "she is your sister _,_ does that mean _nothing to you?"_ he hissed. "We are family, and family stick together before all else, _especially_ in the face of the public. With your impulsive actions you have cost her more than just a few lost days of education. If such trivial things were all your mother and I cared for then the both of you would be kept home with tutors. We send you there so that you both can learn how to properly conduct yourselves and behave under the constant scrutiny of the public and of those you work with."

"But she wasn't behaving properly!" I blurted out, indignant to the unfairness of it all. The second it was out of my mouth I knew I'd made a mistake. I wasn't supposed to speak, I _knew_ that I wasn't supposed to speak, yet I did anyways, _stupid._ Was I ever going to learn?

Within seconds Father was in front of me. I almost stepped back on instinct but I managed to hold my ground and maintain eye contact. He absolutely loathed it when I wasn't being a man.

The slap was expected, as was the sting. He was speaking so I quickly brought my face back and looked him in the eyes again.

"I told you I didn't want to hear it!" he said. "As long as you are living under my house you will obey my rules! What you did today embarrassed your sister in front of her friends, you embarrassed your family to the public, and you embarrassed _yourself_ with your _pettiness!_ I don't care if you felt she deserved it, you two are supposed to be a united front against the jackals of the world. You are to support her in her decisions, and if that means seeking retribution on someone who defamed her than you are to help her not weezle your way behind her back to help yourself cozy up to your superiors! It is high time you ceased this paltry sibling rivalry. Your sister makes the effort, can you truly not stop thinking yourself above her long enough to even attempt it!"

I stood there and took everything he said, biting my tongue to keep from saying anything more that would only worsen the situation.

The lecture portion of the evening was over at that point. Everything that came after…

I sighed, coming back to the present day and time. I didn't want to think about it. My aches reminded me enough of that night on their own without my brain and emotions dwelling on his words also.

I carefully crept down the second floor hall, towards my room. But just as I was passing Ambers door I heard the knob start to twist. My stomach dropped.

I dashed down the hall towards the only open door, which was the bathrooms. I ducked inside and slid behind the open door. And then almost immediately I wanted to smack myself, because why else would she be leaving her room except to go to the bathroom?!

Holding my breath, I listened for the faintest sound of her footsteps, and trying to work out what the hell I was going to say to her. But all I heard was my hammering heartbeat.

I waited…and waited.

The front door suddenly opened and closed.

Huh?

My curiosity took hold and without even thinking about possible consequences I stepped out of the bathroom and ran down the hall, across the banister, and to the sitting room on the other end of house. The very sitting room that gave a perfect view of the front driveway.

Our house was sort of horse shoe shaped, and it wrapped around the circular driveway that had a modest yet stylish fountain in the middle. It was off right now. Our butler turned it on and off throughout the day based on visitors coming. The fact that it wasn't on now, meant that whoever Amber was meeting, they were not expected by Sinclair.

I saw Amber walking down the front steps, a triumphant look on her face. I cracked the window slightly, just enough to hear her heels clacking as she approached the main gate. She opened the door portion and in came Li and Charlotte and…Capucine? Amber _never_ invited her over, she only faked friendship with the poor girl because of her family's connections (and because I'm pretty sure Amber enjoys having someone worship her).

The fact that Amber wasn't inviting any of them inside only made me more curious. I leaned against the window edge slightly to better hear their conversation.

"Well, how'd you do today" Amber said, sounding gleeful.

Charlotte was the first to answer in her usual impassive tone, "three chairs pulled out from under her, stole her history notebook, reset her locker combo, after school-"

"That's the boring stuff" Amber said waving her off. Charlotte didn't seem to mind, granted her face never seemed to change anyways so who knew.

Li went next, "Well because we we're able to get into her locker, just before lunch started I got a hold of her bag and dumped four whole salt shakers in it. That was after I opened up all the bags and containers inside."

Amber laughed, "ha ha! What was her face like when she bit into it?"

"Unfortunately she didn't" Charlotte said.

Li crossed her arms almost like she was offended, "yeah, she just opened it up, looked inside, and then left it on the table and kept talking to her stupid friends. She didn't even look at us. Then she threw it all away."

"Damn, alright fine. Capucine how'd you do?" Amber turned to the smaller girl placing her hands on her hips as she did.

"Weelllll" Capucine said with that prissy little smile of hers, "I got her stuck with a massive detention."

"You what!?" Amber said in shock, "how did _you_ manage that?"

"He-he, during Cultural studies I shoved my chair into her back when I stood up and it caused her to dump three cans of paint all over."

"Is that why you were covered in red earlier" Charlotte asked.

"Whatever" Capucine huffed, "at least I got her, that's what matters. She's probably still at the school cleaning. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if she has to clean the whole room. Madam Langster hates her. She's always answering all her questions, even the ones Madam _wants_ us to get wrong. She even corrects Madam sometimes. But we all know how completely uncivilized she is, and Madam _hates_ that even more".

"Wow, Capucine" Amber said, "I must admit I'm impressed. Two detentions in as many days".

"And to think, all you had to do was get spit on and get paint dumped all over yourself. Good job" Charlotte said.

Capucine looked ready to retort but Li started talking, "I can't wait till you come back on Monday Amber, then we'll really get her. It's going to be the best prank in Sweet Amoris history."

The girls giggled, or perhaps cackled, together for a minute before the conversation changed to making plans for the weekend, with Capucine looking absolutely delighted to be included in the conversation. I carefully shut the window, and crept my way back through the house and to my room.

By the time Amber came back inside I was already gone.

.

.

.

AN: So I was kind of surprised that nobody noticed that at the start of this story Malory was in a bedroom and that in the last chapter she went to sleep in a coat closet. I guess that's good because I was sort of intentionally rolling right over the fact without commenting on it because that's how the characters would view things. Still I was totally expecting someone to be all, 'waits a minute! This does not add up?' and then I could go, 'oh ho ho, you are correct sir or madam, indeed there is something amiss here, any theories on to why that might be?'. But no, none of you caught it.

That, or you did notice and you're all just too polite to mention what clearly looked like a goof up.

Anyways, the English language is full of silliness that is usually very frustrating, but today I got to use some of that silliness for amusement purposes:

Collywobbles - Butterflies in the stomach.

Pettifogger - A person who tries to befuddle others with their speech.

Furbelow - A fringe or ruffle.

Gonzo - Far-out journalism.

Quean - A disreputable woman.

Jackanapes - A rapscallion, hooligan.

Fard - Face-paint, makeup.

Folderol - Nonsense.

Vomitory - An exit or outlet.

Fuddy-duddy - An old-fashioned person

Gobemouche - A highly gullible person.

Fartlek - An athletic training regime.

Callipygian - Having an attractive rear end or nice buns.

Hobbledehoy - An awkward or ill-mannered young boy.

Goombah - An older friend who protects you

Maverick - A loner, someone outside the box.

Cockalorum - A small, haughty man.

Oocephalus - An egghead.

Bonus points to anybody who knows what the title means without looking it up on google. Thankyou, and be sure to have a magnificent day!


	5. Chapter 5

AN: Yeah, I know I said this would be out last week, sorry. Real life has been beating the ever loving bejeezus out of me and this story, _again_ , got away from me in length.

Anywho:

.

.

.

Chapter 5

It's Therapeutic, Honest

.

This was so stupid. This was so stupid. This was so stupid.

It didn't seem to matter how many times I repeated that fraise, I was still sitting here in my p.j.s at three in the morning trying to figure out what one writes in an apology card.

Attempts one through seven, nine, thirteen, or whatever of verbal apology had failed…spectacularly. So I decided to try and write a letter, only…that had sort of blown up in my face too. Literally this time…I owed Auntie a new printer. It's not my fault the darn thing was so ancient it couldn't handle five print requests at once! I kept writing and rewriting the letter for hours and finally I got fed up and sent several versions to the printer thinking that maybe if I got them on paper I'd be able to pick one. But the thing started coughing and wheezing and then…

Anyways, I moved on to an apology card. It was a good thing that Auntie stored all her crafting stuff in the apartment bedroom, because that meant I had no worries about waking her as I had gone through design after design for an appropriate card.

At least, I thought I was being quiet.

There was a knock on the door that made me jump and then a groggy Auntie was in the doorway, "Sweetie…what are you doing?"

I fidgeted. "I'm…I'm aaa…let me just start by saying that this doesn't mean I'm moving into the room!" I blurted, going for the easy conversation topic. I'd hoped that the never ending argument we'd been having on who should move into the apartments only bedroom might distract her. It was a frail hope, and just like every other time I tried to turn the conversation around, Auntie refused to be distracted.

"Noted," she said, "now what are you doing?"

I looked down at the bits of paper and ribbon scattered on the floor all around me. "I'm…trying to apologize," I said, speaking to the floor.

Auntie was quiet, and I didn't want to look up and see her face. She probably thought I was being silly, heck _I thought_ I was being silly; sitting here all alone, in the bedroom I refused to accept, at three in the morning, and on a school night too.

Auntie suddenly sat down on the floor right next to me, "you want to go with something simple, I'd recommend crème colored off-white paper" she said.

A half an hour later I was stunned. With Aunties help, I managed to make a beautifully refined and sophisticated looking card that even Madam Langster couldn't turn her nose up at. Yet it was simple and creative, with its pretty border and the wording:

 **Apology:** \e*pol'a*je\ n.

 **1.** A regretful acknowledgment of an offense or failure.

 **2.** An explanation or excuse

 _I owe you an apology too. Sorry._

 _-Malory_

I'd scrawled out the last bit, Auntie had said it would be better that way, and at this point I pretty much considered her word to be that of the goddess of card making.

She never asked who it was for, or why I was so worked up over this. I'm glad she didn't because I wouldn't have had an answer for her.

It was weird, that _Nathaniel_ of all people, was the reason I was behaving this way.

When I first moved here, I told myself that _this time_ it would be different, that _this time_ I'd actually try, but on my first day of school I just…couldn't. All my old feelings of resentment and bitterness came up and as I walked into the halls of Sweet Amoris I was absolutely certain that this new 'fresh start' would be like all the rest and that in a month or two it'd all be over, my things would be packed, the car door would slam shut, and I'd be right back where I'd started.

But then I had bumped into Nathaniel, or maybe he bumped into me, neither of us had been looking where we were going. We both fell to the floor as a flurry of paperwork flew over our heads. I was still in a bad mood, and on the defensive, and I had lashed out without thinking, "watch it asshole!"

And then I caught sight of those bright golden eyes for the first time. They'd been surprised, and then annoyed. I'd been sneered at plenty of times in my life but this was different. There was no frown of disapproval, no brow scrunch of resentment, just a small tightening of the eyes. It was weird, and I hadn't known how to react to it. People didn't look at me that way. And then to throw me off even more, he had stood and offered me a hand up. And people _most definitely_ didn't treat me that way.

Of course I smacked his hand away.

"I don't need your help" I'd grumbled under my breath, hoisting myself to my feet on my own. I hunched my shoulders, crossed my arms, and looked away.

He just gave me another tightening of the eyes, and speaking much clearer than I did, he said, "my apologies," then he collected his things and walked away without another glance.

I stuck my tongue out at his back.

And with my luck, it figured really that we ended up having almost all the same classes.

I guess in hindsight you could say the beginning of our rivalry was mostly my fault, or well, all my fault. But from there on out it had been a dual effort. It just seemed like it was more me because, no matter what he said, I was the one who won the most.

But…as odd as it sounds, I think that he might be a big part of the reason I was still here. Nathaniel and our never ending competitions gave me a place to direct all my manic energy. Gods know it was never a good idea to let that go unchecked, as many previous experiences could tell.

And with Nathaniel and I constantly at each other's throats, it just, I don't know, it was like I suddenly didn't have time to be all defensive and angsty like I usually was at a new place. I needed to win! And for that I had to actually _engage_ with the class and my peers. People got to know _me,_ yeah it was the heavily censored version of me, but still! Now there were teachers that tolerated me and Mr. Faraize even liked me. Even weirder there were _students_ that liked me. I mean at this rate if I keep playing my cards right I might even make a few friends, _real ones!_

Iris is always smiling at me, sure she does that for everyone, but still it's something.

And Violette almost always walks to school with me. Mostly because we always run into each other on the sidewalk, but she's not ignoring me, so I haven't screwed that up yet.

And Castiel jokes with me, and Kim teases me, and Lysander is really patient with me, and okay yeah nobody really treats me that different than they do anybody else but that was a good sign right? Right?...

Except Nathaniel, he treated me different. Now the question is do I of think that as a good or bad thing?

Ugh, I don't know. What I do know is that I _don't like_ where we're at right now. Having him legitimately angry, not just annoyed or mildly pissed off with me, I didn't like it.

So several hours later, I was once again trudging my way to school on way too little sleep. Today I wasn't even going to talk to Nathaniel, I wasn't even going to look at him if I could help it. I absolutely _refused_ to take the chance of me screwing this up. So I decided to eliminate all those potentially hazardous variables that came with me opening my mouth.

Heck I was even brisk walking because I didn't want to run into Violette or anybody else. I planned to get in, stuff the card in the door jamb of his locker, and get out. I'd be gone by the time he showed up. And we only had two classes together today, neither of which we sat anywhere near each other so I wouldn't even need to talk to him. We'd have the whole weekend to forget about everything and then on Monday we could go right back to the way things where between us. With him treating me…different.

I'd decided that I liked it that way…

I made it to the courtyard over half an hour before first bell. Nathaniels locker was in the second hallway, and I was certain that not a soul took notice as I quickly secured the card to his locker, before making my escape back towards the courtyard.

Unfortunately I didn't notice the little gremlin hiding behind the corner.

* * *

"But Rosa, I don't even know what I did wrong!" Leigh said, trailing along behind me as I walked towards the school.

I think it actually hurt more to hear him say that. I was glad he was behind me so he couldn't see the tears in the corners of my eyes. With my chin held high, and my steps made with confidence, I was certain that from behind I looked more like a righteous Valkyrie of legend than the sniffling little girl I felt like.

"It's not a centralized one thing Leigh" I said, keeping my eyes forward, and somehow managing to keep my voice level. "You've been ignoring me a lot lately, and I'm not so certain if it's _me_ you like, or just having a girlfriend that you like".

He'd been ignoring me a whole heap of a lot more than just 'a lot' though. We'd barely said two words to each other this entire week, and that was with me being at his shop nearly every day to help him prepare all the dress orders he had for an upcoming gala. Sometimes I even wondered if he maybe only kept me around because of my usefulness for his career, but that idea scared me so much I couldn't even voice it out loud, terrified of it being confirmed even a little.

I understood that his business was booming. And frankly the fact that he quit high school and moved out to this city all so that he could pursue his dream was something that I would forever admire about him. But it used to be that even when the boutique was packed to the brim with customers, with a line leading all the way out the door, when I walked in, no matter what, he would still take a moment to give me a quick hug and a kiss to the forehead.

This morning when I came in and called a hello, we were practically empty, and without even looking up from his clipboard the only thing Leigh said to me was, "oh good you're here, the fabric shipment finally came in last night, and it needs to be unpacked".

I didn't even get a third of the way through unpacking it all because by the time I'd reached the satin I was sobbing so hard that I had to sit down on a box, knowing that I'd ruin the fabric if I got any tears on it. Even then I was worried about troubling Leigh.

I love him _so_ _much._ And I used to be certain that he felt the same way, but I'm not so sure of that anymore.

It was as Leigh drove Lysander and I to school that I finally burst. It was Lysander not Leigh who noticed that I wasn't as talkative as usual, it was Lysander not Leigh who noticed that my eyes were puffy, and it was Lysander not Leigh that asked me if I was alright.

Leigh had answered before I could, glancing at his brother in the back seat and saying "why wouldn't she be?"

"Probably, _because she's not!_ " I screeched at him, getting right in his face as I leaned across the center console. I got a brief moment to see his wide eyes and completely stunned features before I turned and threw the door open, storming out in a huff as Leigh slammed on the breaks. We were already pretty much there, so we hadn't been moving even five miles an hour but still it felt good to make him worry, even if it was silly.

After a moment the air was filled with the sounds of honking cars and I suddenly felt Leighs hand on my shoulder. He tried to turn me around but I shrugged him off and kept walking.

I did glance out the corner of my eye at the street though, and I could see Lysander hurriedly climbing into the driver's seat of Leigh's car that was sitting idle directly at the front of a building line of cars. It actually made me feel a bit better to know that Leigh was fine with creating a scene and angering a bunch of people just so that he could come after me, but I think part of that was just because I _wanted_ it to make me feel better.

Leigh followed me all the way into the courtyard and up to the front steps, but I didn't want to hear it. He tried to grab my hand as I opened the front door but I yanked it back and tersely told him he wasn't allowed inside. I intended to walk in like a brave confidant assured woman slamming the door behind me as I went but just as I grabbed the handle the door suddenly flew open and a fast walking Rory came busting out.

Her eyes widened at the sight of me and with both of us still in forward momentum we just barely managed to keep our balance as we bounced off each other. We grabbed each other's forearms out of instinct, and spinning, we switched places like we were playing ring around the rosy or something.

"Sor-" I started to say, then suddenly I realized that I was now facing Leigh, and that he had a full view of my tear stained puffy face. My eyes darted to him and I saw that he was just staring at me, frozen mid step, his eyes wide and his hand held aloft like he had intended to catch me when I'd run into Rory.

I felt even more tears coming so I quickly turned and ran into the school.

I could just barely hear Rory's voice as the door swung shut behind me, "geeze man, the hell did you do?"

* * *

What the hell had I done? I really screwed up big time. That Malory girl was right. How could I not have noticed that Rosa was so upset? I felt like the worst man in the world right now.

With a sense of dread I realized that I couldn't even remember what I'd said to her this morning, or yesterday afternoon, or the day before that, or the day before that, or the day before that and so on! So I had absolutely no idea what I'd done that was so wrong!

I _really_ screwed up big time.

The Malory girl had gone to speak with Rosa and make sure she was okay, and I realized that she must have been a friend of Rosa's, yet I'd never heard of her. Was I really so bad that I didn't even know some of the most basic things about my own girlfriend?

I paced the courtyard fretfully, getting odd looks from student and staff as I did. My little brother came by just before the bell rang. He looked a little shaky (at least in my eyes) from having to drive the car but he didn't appear to be broken so at least he hadn't crashed it…probably. Either way he seemed well enough that I could worry about him later. Right now my mind was on Rosa.

Lysander approached me on his way in just as the bell rang. We didn't say anything, we never needed to between the two of us. Lysander just crossed his arms and sighed, then clapped me briefly on the shoulder and went in. the message was clear; you screwed up, but you can still fix it.

And I intended to.

The Malory girl came back, five minutes after classes had started, so she must be skipping or something. I wondered if Rosa was so depressed that she was doing the same.

"Alright yeah, she's mad, and sad, and um…kay, just so you know I'm really not good at this kind of stuff but, I think she's really, _really_ hurt."

I sighed, felling absolutely awful, "yes, I gathered us much. Did she tell you anything specific?"

"Um, well," Malory rubbed the back of her head, "she thinks you're too distant, she wants you to share your feelings more. You need to make the first step…I think."

I sighed again, "I'm not good with this kind of thing either, but I truly do like her." I looked away, but I wasn't focused on anything. I had no idea where to even start. Expressing emotions had always been a challenge for me thanks to the constant suppressing of them I'd gone through in childhood. While my parents were loving and accepting of Lysander's and I's eccentricities, our home town was most certainly _not_. There was a reason I moved away and got Lysander out of there as soon as I could.

But when I moved here, there had actually been many girls vying for my attention. But it wasn't until Rosa had barged her way into my life that I'd even considered a relationship. It was hard not to feel emotions when that girl was around, she _made_ you think about your feelings and she _made_ you deal with them, sometimes with the force and grace of a cannon. It was one of the most blessed beautiful things I'd ever encountered in another person.

Malory fidgeted in front of me as I thought, "I could uh, ask around, for an ideas…I guess".

I hesitated. The last girl that had offered to 'help' me with my relationship had been one of my recurring customers back when Rosa and I first started dating. She was some third duchess's niece or something, and while I love court intrigue, I had never cared much for this particular girl so I hadn't payed much attention. That is until she offered to help me with my inability at relationships as I struggled to figure out how to be a boyfriend when Rosa and I were only a week into our courtship.

We'd almost broken up. But Lysander's friend Castiel managed to overhear a conversation the girl had been having on her phone. Thank goodness he enjoys hanging out on roofs or we may have never known that she was intentionally sabotaging Rosa.

And two years later, girls still contended for my affection, even those that _knew_ I was with Rosa. There had been other attempts to break us up... suffice to say I was wary of this girls offer to help.

"I…I appreciate that" I said cautiously, "bu-".

Malory rolled her eyes and scoffed, cutting me off as she crossed her arms and took a defensive pose, "Listen I'm not doing this for you" she said, "Rosa's my friend so I'm gonna help her, but that doesn't mean I'm any less pissed, _got it_?" She gave me a stern look that clearly indicated her distaste for me.

I blinked. That…had not been what I expected. I nodded to her, both acknowledging her statement and her dislike.

"Thankyou" I said, giving her a formal bow to show that I meant it.

For some reason this got another scoff out of her. She threw up her hands, and rolled her eyes, "argh, don't do that! Look, just stay put, I'm gonna see if anybody has any ideas".

* * *

"Hey Lys" Castiel said, approaching me just as class ended. "What was with you this morning, you were totally out of it."

"I drove" I said.

Castiel just stared at me.

"As in…a car?" he said, a hint of worry seeping into his voice.

I nodded.

"A four wheeled, _motorized_ car?"

Again, a nod.

"…Well, you're still breathing. So…success?"

I shook my head.

Castiel sighed, "alright lets go check the parking lot during break, what all did you hit?"

"Nothing alive this time."

"That's good. Its progress."

"Unless you count the tree."

"Less good."

"…and your motorcycle."

"WHA-!?"

The door opened and Malory suddenly burst in and placed herself right between Castiel and I "Lysander! I need your help!" she said.

"J-Jenny" Castiel was spluttering, "You hit Jenny."

"Who's Jenny?" Malory asked, "You know what, never mind, Lysander you know Rosa pretty well, her boyfriend and her are fighting and she's really upset. Do you have any ideas on what her guy can do to make it up to her?"

I nodded, ignoring Castiel still lamenting his bike, "I have an idea" I said.

* * *

I still felt miserable and I knew that my face showed it so I ended up skipping first period. Instead I sat curled up in one of the little nooks created by the stairwell. Nobody noticed me and that's the way I wanted it.

"Rosa!"

Well, almost nobody noticed me.

Malory came dashing down the hall and skidded to a halt right in front of me. "Your dating Lysander's brother!" was the first thing out of her mouth.

She looked so flabbergasted and I couldn't help but smile a little at her choice of topic. "Rory, what does that have to do with anything?" I said kindly.

"Oh, um, well nothing I guess. I just thought I would have picked up on something like that by now," she said, suddenly awkward.

My smile still wasn't reaching my eyes but it stayed. Something about Malory always put me in a good mood. She was so bad at expressing herself, but to anybody who bothered to look, it was obvious that she still felt her emotions very strongly. And even though she screwed up a lot, I thought it was incredibly endearing that she tried.

"Right, uh, anyways!" Malory brightened, and held a scrap of paper up, "that's not why I came to talk to you. I've got a poem-"

The paper was suddenly snatched from her hand. We both looked up at the simpering face of Capucine who was leaning over the staircase railing and holding the piece of paper up just out of reach.

"He-he" she chuckled, " _another_ love letter? My, my Malory, what will Amber say when she finds out your crushing on her brother so much?" She airily waved another, much fancier looking piece of paper about.

"You like Nathaniel?" I said, so surprised for a moment that I forgot my sorrow.

"NO!" Rory shouted her face turning beat red in an instant. "CAPUCINE! You half-pint midget troll! Get back here!"

Capucine ran up the stairs, and Rory immediately took off after her, but the smaller girl had a very big head start as Malory had to skirt around to the front of the staircase.

Wondering if I should be doing something, I started to get up. But then Malorys head and torso popped over the side directly above me and she pointed a stern finger at me shouting, " _don't move!"_ , before she disappeared and I heard the pounding of feet going up the stairs and across the second floor hallway.

There was a crash sound. And then some yelling. I briefly heard Capucines tittering little laugh which immediately morphed into her squealing. Then it was quite for a moment.

The stomping picked up again but it was much slower and only that of one person. Malory came clomping down the stairs her hands balled into fists at her side. I started to get up again, but again she yelled, " _Stay there!_ I'm gonna fix this I just need a minute!"

I stayed put.

I could hear Capucine struggling with something upstairs, and five minutes later when she finally came down I had to hold back a laugh when I caught sight of her. Her hair looked like it had been used as a birds nest. There were actually twigs and leaves in it!

* * *

"You…shoved a branch in her hair?"

"More like, I shoved her hair in a branch."

I blinked at the girl standing in front of me. When she came back to the courtyard looking angry I knew that it was going to be bad news, and it was, because Rosa never got the poem my brother wrote. Yet, I hadn't expected it to be…absurd news as well.

"I mean, it's kind of her own fault" Malory was saying, waving her arms about in wild gesticulations, "well, actually, its entirely her own fault for ripping up the notes, but the branch part is also her fault because she was the one who decided to throw the scraps out the window that had the tree right next to it. I was just acting on spur of the moment revenge, so I grabbed her hair and shoved it into a wad of sap. It's not my fault she's so stupid that she got herself even more tangled." Malory crossed her arms defensively, and I just starred at her. What kind of odd girl was this? Actually maybe I shouldn't be surprised that she and Rosa were close.

"Anyway" I sighed, "what do we do now? I don't supposed you can get Lysander to write another one?"

Malory scuffed her foot on the ground, "I could, if I could find him. I haven't seen him or Castiel since this morning. But…maybe somebody else has an idea. Don't worry, ill figure something out"

She didn't sound too assured, and my melancholy only got worse. "I hope so" I said, and I really, really did.

* * *

I couldn't help but stare out the student council window at the parking lot. The parking lot in which Castiel and Lysander where currently trying to dislodge a mundane black car from a tree. For reasons I couldn't fathom, Lysander was the one in the driver's seat and he quiet clearly didn't know what he was doing. A part of me felt that I should go out there and help them, but considering Castiels animosity towards me that might just make the situation worse. Granted, with how good those two were doing on their own it looked like we might have to replace that tree.

"Last one Nathaniel" Melody said cheerfully, pulling my attention away from Castiel getting knocked over again, as she set another packet on top of the already impressive stack.

Since when did putting up posters require so much paperwork?

I glared at the stack in front of me, briefly contemplating the aerodynamics of paper airplanes, and how these ridiculous forms would serve a much better use in a physics class than this.

"Thank you Melody" I said as sincerely as I could.

I must have hid my annoyance just fine because she smiled pleasantly at me before returning to her filing.

Looking around at the rest of the student council, I saw that they were all happily and pleasantly doing their own work. It made me think about the 'it's a small world' ride at Disney land. And look at that, Danny is starting to whistle, of course.

Unfortunately, their cheerfulness, was only darkening the cloud over my head. My day had started off bad and gone downhill from there. Father was still displeased at me, and he let me know it this morning over breakfast. All I'd wanted was a bowl of cereal. Not a lecture reminding me of my failings.

Father had been…temperamental, last night, and considering that he was still angry at me for getting Amber in trouble a lot of his frustration had been directed at me. Granted it wasn't as bad as the night _before_ last night, which had been, well, awful. But I still had to endure all his belittling comments and offhand remarks about my many inadequacies.

It didn't help that he had a talent for pointing out things that I already felt awful about. Yes, I knew I was a terrible older brother, yes, I knew my morals could be really twisted up in my own selfishness sometimes, and yes I know how egotistical and self-important I can be.

Usually I can console myself by constantly reminding myself to do better, and be better. But when Father spoke, I felt like my flaws were the only thing that I was made up of. Like there was nothing else in me that was even remotely worthwhile.

This morning hadn't been any better as, without Amber, Father had driven me, and me alone to school. Suffice to say, I was still trying to remember what it was that I liked about myself.

Morning classes had been tedious and mind numbing to say the least. I actually found myself wishing Malory was there if for no other reason than to distract me from the monotony. For the first time in months, hell, in _years_ I was wishing for the bell to ring already. I didn't understand it, I used to be fine cycling through the drollness of days, it never bothered me. But after only three months of dealing with the most annoying girl on the planet, I now found myself in the odd state of being _bored_. Which only allowed my thoughts to run rampant.

I knew I needed to talk to her, and let her know that I didn't blame her for the paint incident yesterday. Also I should probably warn her about Amber on Monday.

But I hadn't seen Malory all morning. And considering how she'd been avoiding me yesterday afternoon I wouldn't be surprised if she had skipped today to avoid me. The thought made my stomach twist unpleasantly.

To make matters worse my back is _still_ killing me. I'd woken up to a sharp pain snapping across my left shoulder blade this morning, and all day I'd had to control my breathing as I worked to keep my muscles from screaming. It all made it incredibly hard to focus on anything during classes. Frankly, I really could have used Malory as a distraction this morning.

And now I was stuck in the student council room for our twenty minute break, and everyone was being incredibly cheery, and it was pissing me off, and this damn ridgeback chair certainly wasn't helping anything.

I stood up.

I gave Melody the quick excuse of needing a change of scenery, so I offered to take the rest of the posters from yesterday and finish hanging them up before break was over.

"Oh, I'll come with you!" she said brightly, grabbing a stack.

So much for being alone. "Thanks" I said, keeping my voice just as pleasant and welcoming as always without any trace of the groaning frustration that I really felt.

We left the student council room, Daniel shooting me a wink as we did. I wanted to roll my eyes. Yes, I knew that Melody liked me. Thank you for pointing out the obvious.

As we walked side by side, she smiled pleasantly at me, like she always does, asked me how my morning was going, fine, I answered, just like I always did. I asked her about her morning, like always, and she proceeded to tell me about it, like always. And _like always_ our conversation was very pleasant. So yeah, rude as it was, I tuned her out a bit, listening with only half an ear.

I did like Melody, she was sweet, and knew how to carry herself respectfully, but sometimes she could be, well, kind of boring. And with my mood this morning I really didn't feel like being 'pleasant', but to not do so would be incredibly discourteous.

"But mom go the _pumpernickel,_ " Melody said, letting out her tinkling laugh and smiling up at me and I immediately felt like a jerk. Here she was just being nice and I was pretty much treating that kindness like it was a tedious chore. Gods my Father had a point when he said I was so ill-mannered. Maybe this was why I pissed off people like Malory so much.

I smiled back at Melody, still not at all sure what it was we we're talking about, but she seemed reassured enough and went on with her story.

"So then I decided to use the honey mustard rather than the Dijon" she said. "But, onions can be so finicky" Melody continued as we neared the end of the hallway, "so I decided to put the lettuce on the top, instead of-"

"GIVE THOSE BACK YOU ONION EYED MEASLES!"

What the?!

I looked up just in time to see Capucine and Li come racing around the corner. Li would have run into me if I hadn't quickly sidestepped her. Capucine however, clipped Melody in the shoulder sending the brunette and her paperwork flying. On instinct, I dropped my own posters and stepped forward, catching Melody around the waist so that she fell into me and getting a grip on the back of Capucines coat before she face planted into the floor.

"Are you two alright?" I asked, my eyes bouncing between the both of them.

Capucine was mostly flopped along the ground, with her upper torso hanging, being supported at her armpits by her jacket. Melody was looking up at me wide eyed and stuttering.

And then Malory came rushing around the corner too.

I dropped Capucine and shoved Melody aside to keep Malory from running into either of them. Instead she ran headlong into me. Even with my aching body, years of Kendo kept my feet rooted, Malory however bounced right off me. Reflexes still kicking in, I managed to catch her shoulders and keep her from falling to the floor as well.

"Wha- _Nathaniel!_ " she said, immediately realizing just who it was supporting her. "I, you, how…Hi," she said.

I barely refrained my eye roll. "Hi" I said, "Just what exactly are you doing?"

I hardly noticed Capucine scrabbling to her feet right next me, but I definitely noticed when she threw a wad of what looked like confetti up in the air.

"He-he" she laughed, sticking her tongue out at Malory and running again after Li, still throwing more 'confetti' about as she did.

Malorys whole face turned red, "STOP THAT YOU BEETLE HEADED GIGLET!" she yelled, breaking out of my hold and taking off after the girls again.

I could only stare after her in bewilderment.

"Um" Melody mumbled, her hand came up and brushed some of the 'confetti' off my shoulder. When I looked closer I could see that it was actually various shredded flower petals. Suffice to say I was only more confused.

With a sigh I turned to Melody, "You'll have to excuse me" I said, "I need to go halt the impending chaos".

And with that I took off down the hall after the three girls.

I wasn't sure if I could completely stop the total bedlam that was sure to occur, Malory was involved after all, but at the very least if I could keep the pandemonium to a minimum it would be less paperwork for me. Also, I sort of, still felt like I owed Malory. So perhaps if I could keep her out of detention we'd be even. Even for what, I wasn't sure, but at least my stomach would stop twisting at the thought of talking to her.

With my longer legs and the lack of students in the halls to dodge around I caught up to Malory in no time who had in turn caught up to Capucine. They were both stumbling up the staircase, and Malory at least had the sense not to try and grab Capucine on such precarious footing. I saw a wide eyed Rosa stick her head out from behind some lockers, and it briefly crossed my mind to wonder what she was doing here.

Malory stopped in her chase for just a moment to look over the banister and yell, "STAY THERE!" at Rosa, before continuing her mad dash.

Rosa did as she said, but her eyes widened a second time when they saw me go rushing past and up the stairs as well.

I reached the second floor, and just as I did, I saw Capucine trip. Malory, apparently noticing her chance was getting ready to leap at Capucine. Luckily I wasn't far behind. Quickly I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around Malory's middle, catching her mid-flight.

She makes and 'oof' noise as everything but her gut continues in forward momentum. Her feet come down and she regains her footing just as Capucine rolls onto her back and looks up at us. There is brief moment of stillness as we all just stare at each other.

I let out a relieved sigh, thinking that now sense has reasserted itself and we can begin to ascertain what happened rationally.

I thought wrong.

"GAH! You fashion illiterate little cockroach! You're worse than a puddle of iguana piss!" Malory began squirming in earnest and I had to tighten my hold on her to keep her from pouncing on Capucine.

"Humph!" Capucine said, crossing her arms and turning her head in a prissy manner, "it's your own fault you know, if you hadn't been such a confrontational gorilla."

Not helping Capucine.

"I was just trying to help someone!" Malory shouted, "you asinine muddled little-"

"Malory!" I said. She didn't hear me.

"Bootlicking-"

" _Malory!_ "

"Maggot breathed-"

"MALORY!"

"SHE RUINED THE HYDRANGEAS!" Malory shouted up at me, pointing an accusing finger at Capucine.

"…what?"

"Jade wouldn't let me have any other flowers, but that bush was already ruined so it was fine, but then Li and Capucine took them, and Li doesn't have any other ideas, and now Rosa will never be happy again!"

"…Li has no ideas, so she took flowers from you that she wanted to give to Rosa?" I asked, trying to puzzle out the babbling.

"Not lipstick Li, boyfriend Leigh!" Malory said.

"…again, what?"

"He just wants to make things better!" Malory said insistently, waving her arms around to iterate her point "but he's bad at this stuff, because this stuff is _hard_. And it makes no sense, because people make no sense. And it's all just a big messed up ball of- _of hard!_ "

She hung her head and stopped flailing about, as she literally drooped in my arms. I looked to Capucine hoping for some kind of explanation but all I got was another head turn and prudish 'humph'.

Malory suddenly stiffened and whipped her head around to blink up at me as if she suddenly remembered I was there.

"Nathaniel!" she said, actually sounding surprised.

"Yes?"

"Uh…nothing." She began to squirm again in earnest only this time it was obviously to get away from me. I let her go, but made sure to stay between her and Capucine. But I needn't have bothered as Malory quickly stepped back, keeping her eyes on the floor and edging towards the staircase.

"Um, I need to, I should go!" she quickly said, and before I could get a word out, she did.

"Humph" Capucine said, standing up, "no good shrew."

I rolled my eyes. Capucine certainly didn't have a flair for insults like Malory did.

I looked at the destroyed flowers scattered across the linoleum floor, still not entirely certain of what exactly was going on. But it seemed that Malory had good intentions of some kind. And while it certainly wasn't right of her to chase other students down the halls, I was definitely getting the feeling that she didn't start this mess. And I _knew_ that she wasn't at fault for the paint mess yesterday.

"Actually Capucine" I said before she could walk away, "I've been meaning to have a word with you."

* * *

"Where the hell did he go?!" I shouted, while scanning the courtyard.

I'd come out to report to Leigh the disastrous flower failure and the jack wagon had up and disappeared. Oh Rosa was way too good for him. I don't care if he is Lysanders brother, obviously thoughtfulness doesn't run in the family. Not that Lysander was incredibly thoughtful I guess, but he's just forgetful, it's not cause he's mean. _Unlike his brother!_

I turned with a huff and stomped back towards the school. This day sucks, why'd I even bother coming to school today. Nathaniel never got my apology card that I had stayed up forever making, and then to make things worse I just got done making a complete fool of myself in front of him. Who gets that worked up over flowers! Children that's who, which is exactly what I was behaving like.

You know what, screw it. I'm ditching. I'm grabbing Rosa, and we're gonna ditch and run off to the mall, and drown our misery in ice cream!

"Miss Malory wait!" A voice sounded behind me just as I was pushing open the entrance doors. It was Leigh. He was running up to me, his hand gripping a giant sleek looking shopping bag.

I turned and crossed my arms, really not in the mood. Rosa was _still_ crying because of him.

"I *huff* have something *huff* for Rosa! *huff*" he said, trying to catch his breath.

I blinked, surprised. He'd gone out and bought her something? Okay, well, maybe he was a little thoughtful.

"What *huff* do you think *huff*?" he asked, pulling out the bags contents and showing me.

I blinked again and my eyes grew to saucers. I was certain my mouth was hanging open but I didn't care. I was too stunned by the absolutely gorgeous dress he was holding. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I know jack diddly squat about fashion, but even a philistine like me could see that this dress was _amazing._

It was a relatively simple cut, something that wouldn't be cumbersome to wear. A deep violet, collared bodice, attached to a flowy ruffled white skirt that would come just beneath the knees, with matching violet colored underskirts. There was golden thread inlaid into the bodice that spiraled out in an intricate design, which somehow managed to create beautiful roses despite the swirls seeming random. On the hip sat a pair of matching golden flowers with ribbon flowing around beneath them. And all of it held together with the same ribbon crisscrossing along the bodice.

This dress was _perfect_ for Rosa. The colors all matched her hair and eyes. The style was exactly the kind of thing she ran around in. The damn thing had roses in it for gods sake!

"I have matching shoes" Leigh said, looking at me anxiously, "do you think she'll like it?"

"Where…did you find this?" I couldn't believe it. This was too perfect, it had to be the work of a fairy godmother or something. Was Auntie right every time she told me magic does exist?

"I made it" Leigh said, "So do you think she'll like it?"

"You _made_ that?!" Okay fine, he was super thoughtful. "Why didn't you mention this earlier?! This is perfect."

He blinked at me. "I…I've just been working on it on the side. It's nothing special. I've actually been meaning to give it to her for a few days now. But I kept forgetting."

"You've, just been doing this?...because…just because."

He shrugged "Yes. I like making things for her."

I literally face palmed. Okay fine, he was the most thoughtful boyfriend ever. He was just also incredibly like his brother. At least Lysander was mostly just forgetful, not completely oblivious as well.

"Alright ruffles, stuff it back in the bag, I'll take it to Rosa. And trust me, she's going to love it" I said.

Leigh looked relieved, and he carefully folded the dress and placed it back in the bag that I now could see read; 'Custom Clothier Shop' with a beautiful monogram of an L above the wording.

Leigh handed me the bag and I gave him a two fingered salute before heading inside.

 _Finally_ things were looking up. Rosa was going to love this, and then she and Leigh would be better, and I'll have finally done something right today.

I peeked inside the bag, wanting to get a look at the shoes. The were dark pumps with gold roses on the heals. There was also what looked like a matching bracelet huddled up in the bags corner.

"He-he, oooh what's that?"

I froze.

I looked up and standing right in the middle of the hallway was Li, Charlotte, and Capucine.

"I just got a lecture because of you" Capucine said putting on a pout.

Li crossed her arms as if she cared, "Yeah. So what are you going to do to make it up to her?"

Charlotte didn't say anything, but all three began advancing on me.

 _Crap._

* * *

I was beginning to feel a little better finally. At least enough that I'd stopped crying.

I checked my face one more time with my compact mirror, and taking a deep breath, I held my chin up high and made my way back into the hallways. I just needed to keep calm, and hold it together. And I was certain I could do that, so long as the day didn't throw anything else to disastrous at me.

"ROSA!"

I looked up at the sound of my name. Malory was racing down the hallway towards me, Li, Charlotte and Capucine hot on her heals.

"Malory what are you-WHAAA!" Malory grabbed my wrist, not breaking stride, and suddenly I was being dragged along behind her, racing through the halls and students, with three harpies screeching after us.

"Run!" Malory said, "Don't worry Rosa, they're not ruining this one! I won't let them!"

"Ruin what?!" I shouted back.

But Malory didn't seem to hear me, "I have a plan!" she yelled. We reached the staircase and then we were up the staircase. I looked over my shoulder, and while we we're losing Capucine, Li was keeping pace, and Charlottes long legs were gaining on us. Malory suddenly skidded to a stop and I nearly crashed into her.

"In here!" Malory said, shoving me into one of the classrooms. She came in right behind me and slammed the door shut. "Help me block the door!" she demanded.

"Malory what is going on!" I asked, while we shoved chairs into the door. Unfortunately we we're in the chem lab, so there were no desks, only work tables, and those we're bolted to the floor.

"Okay look" Malory said, pausing in her manic running amok to grab my arm. She started dragging me towards the windows while she talked, "therapists are always going on and on, and bla bla bla about how happiness starts with open communication. Now I'll be the first to admit, that most of those dipshits are just elitist blowhards."

We reached the same window that Mr. Humbleburg had jumped out of a few days ago, and Malory unlatched it, "but in this situation I think they might have a point. So-" she positioned me right in front of the open window, giving me a perfect view of the courtyard.

And a perfect view of a very surprised Leigh standing in that courtyard.

"Communicate!" Malory shouted, so that we both heard her. And then she ran off to shove more chairs at the door.

I looked at Leigh. He looked at me. Several students gathered in the courtyard looked at both of us.

What the heck am I supposed to say? Actually, _no_ , I'm not going to say anything. It's _him_ who needs to make the first step.

There was a bang on the classroom door. Three agitated voices could be heard squabbling on the other side. And there was another bang as they tried to shove it open again.

"Crap!" Malory said, she'd gotten most of the chairs piled up and the door was still budging forward with every shove. Malory started throwing all manner or random things at the door, like boxes, lab coats, the fire extinguisher.

Alright Leigh, if ever there was a time to prove yourself this is it, because I don't think you're going to have the chance in a few minutes. I crossed my arms and looked down at him, schooling my expression into a clear, 'I'm waiting' look.

A small crowd of onlookers had now gathered, and they were all giving Leigh their own glances as well.

Leigh blinked up at me a few times, then took a deep breath to regain his composure.

"Rosa" he said, "I…I know you're angry, and…well, you have every right to be."

I was a lot more than angry Leigh. I was hurt, and scared, and all around miserable. And I wasn't sure if you even cared!

Despite my efforts, something must have shown on my face, because Leigh took a step back, eyes wide. Damnit, damn him and Lysander for their perceptiveness. I was trying to look strong and confidant here.

"Rosa…" Leigh said, his voice had a pleading edge to it. "Please, tell me what's wrong. I know I haven't been treating you right but I," he gulped, "I'm sorry, but I haven't been paying enough attention and I don't understand. Is it because of that red head that keeps visiting the shop?"

"Why do you say that!" I seethed, "Is something going on?!"

"What? No! I-" he took a breath, "look, I've been really busy with the shop lately, and _I'm sorry_ but I just don't know what I did to upset you!"

"Thats the POINT!" I nearly screamed, tears gathering at the edges of my eyes.

"What?" Leigh said, looking even more confused.

"Rosa!" Malory yelled, as she ran by me with a toolbox under one arm and a bundle of safety goggles in the other. "Open communication! Some people are really, _really_ bad at reading others. You need to explain to him _why_ you're upset!"

"Why should I?" I yelled back at her, fully aware of how impetuous I sounded, "He's the one who's at fault here.

"Yes I know but," she started sifting through the massive pile of junk she'd created, "sometimes someone simply needs to take the first step so that a bridge of communication and trust can be formed. And then from there we can begin to establish strategies to take further steps towards mutual beneficial goals!", she said popping out from under a stool, fire extinguisher in her hands.

"Are you regurgitating psych books at me?!"

"More like relaying what's been regurgitated at me" she said, fiddling with the nozzle, "look, the point is, I know it sucks. And I know you're hurt, and that you feel like you're being walked all over and you want some kind of validation for that. You want _him_ to make it up to _you_. But the fact is, people are flawed. They screw up, and I can't imagine what it must be like to be the one who always has to fix things, but look at him. He is _trying!"_

I looked again at Leigh, who was still looking up at me imploringly. Malory…had a point I guess. He was out there, making a fool of himself as the crowd of curious onlookers continued to grow, as he attempted to fix things. I bit my lip, and took a deep breath.

"You never seem to have time for me anymore" I said.

There was another bang, and the classroom door budged another inch.

"And I know you're busy, but it's like" I took a steadying breath, "it's like everything is more important than me in your eyes."

Another bang. "Crap, crap, crap" Malory was mumbling.

"And-and I just worry" I could feel the crying coming now, my voice was beginning to waver.

Bang. "He-he, we're coming!" Capucines voice sing songed.

"Because I really do care about you, so, _so_ much", the tears were about to overflow.

BANG.

"But, I'm scared that you don't care about me anymore" I finally sobbed. And now I was crying. I'd finally said it, my worst fear. And based on his answer, I'd just handed Leigh the power to shred me up in the worst way possible. I covered my face in fear and shame.

BANG. "Dammit Leigh!" I heard Malory yell, "Communicate. How does that make you feel?!"

"Awful" Leigh said, and the complete wretchedness of his voice made me gasp slightly, and look at him through my tears. I'm not sure if I've ever heard that much emotion in his tone before.

"And, horrid, and despicable, and terrible, and…Gods Rosa you should never have had reason to feel that way". He looked up at me pleadingly, "I _am_ sorry, I am so, so sorry" he said. "Rosa I…I love you, and somehow I guess I just figured that because of that we we're good and I just went through the days without _even thinking_ about showing that to you" he looked at the ground, sounding disgusted with himself. "I'm not going to ask you to forgive me, you shouldn't. But Rosa, I'm going to make this up to you. I'm going to make sure that you know that I _do care_ about you, more than you can ever imagine. If…you'll let me."

He actually looked scared, waiting for my answer.

"L-Leigh" I babbled, there wasn't much I could get out through my hitching voice.

BANG!

Rory was suddenly next to me, patting me on the back, trying to be consoling but there was a frantic edge to it. "Okay sessions almost over, here this is for you" she shoved a black bag into my arms.

"Wait!" Leigh yelled up, "I want to give it to her!"

And then he was running towards the wall right beneath the window, and, _climbing the wall!_

"Seriously!" Malory yelled, before rushing off.

I couldn't afford to see what she was doing, "Leigh stop that! You're going to hurt yourself!" I yelled down, suddenly panicked. Yes he was tall, and therefor he could probably reach all the potential handholds, but Leigh was not the most athletic.

"I don't care!" he yelled back.

"Hold this!" Malory said, suddenly next to me again. She handed me the sleeve of a lab coat, and she took the other. We dangled the tail end of it out the window so that Leigh could grab hold and with the three of us we had him in the window within seconds.

And then suddenly I was wrapped up in Leigh's arms.

There was a roar of cheering from our audience in the courtyard, but I couldn't be bothered to care right now.

"Rosa" Leighs voice was muffled as he buried his face into my hair. He might have meant to say something more but instead his arms tightened further around me and he began swaying us a little. "Please" he mumbled.

I was crying again. I dipped my head, trying to regain some semblance of composure.

He pulled back, and wrapped both his hands around my face tilting it up as he bent and hunched his shoulders bringing his eyes nearly level with mine. "Please let me fix this" he said, his eyes looking at me pleadingly.

I couldn't say anything. So I nodded through my hiccups. Leigh smiled sadly, and pulled me to him to kiss my forehead, before wrapping me up in his arms again. "-m, sorry" he mumbled.

I wrapped my own arms around him and let out a weak little laugh. I felt drained, but I also felt better. And despite everything that led up to this moment, I was completely content to just remain in the moment, being held by him.

BANG! SCREEEE- _CRASH!_

Leigh and I jumped, turning our heads towards the now open door.

"HA! Now give us the stupid bag!" Li shouted, as she Charlotte and Capucine came pouring in.

"Yeah!" Capucine said, "Whatever's in it is- _EEEEII_ _!"_

SPISSSHH!

All three girls shrieked and jumped back as Rory, who was now standing on the table nearest the door, let out a blast of white foam from the fire extinguisher.

"Stay _back_ you heathens!" Rory shouted, "I'm armed!"

There was moment of tense silence as nobody moved.

Charlotte squinted her eyes, "She's bluffing," the ponytailed brunette said.

Li took a cautious step forward.

"RAAAAAAGH!" Malory roared, jumping off the table.

"AAAAAHHH!" the three girls screeched, and turned tail and fled. Malory chased after them, also still yelling, and letting off occasional sprits of the fire extinguisher.

…

…

…

"Should we….?" Leigh asked, leaving the question hanging.

"In a minute" I answered, burying me head back into his chest.

* * *

 _CRASH!_

"AAAAH!"

SPISSSSHH!

"EEEEEIII!"

"Mwha ha ha ha! Flee inferior mortals!"

"You crazy bitch!"

" _Exactly._ Fear Me!"

SPISSSSHH!

"AAAHH!"

If ever there was a time to use the age old campy fraise, 'I sense a disturbance in the force', this was it.

I pinched my nose, trying to hold off a headache that had been building for the past hour. My back still ached all over, and the pain had worked its way up to my neck, which in turn had worked its way into my temples.

Second period had started about ten minutes ago, but there had been a large congregation of students still out in the courtyard for some reason, so Melody and I had gone to investigate and usher them all back to class. But they were already dispersing by the time we got there.

Just as we came back inside, pandemonium struck. And I had a pretty good idea who was at the center of it.

"I'll meet you back at class Melody" I said to the brunette.

Melody's face took on a pinched look as she said, "You don't have to handle every problem she causes you know."

There was another loud SPISSSHH noise from the down the hall, accompanied with another shriek.

"I know," I sighed, before heading in the direction of the noise.

When I came around the corner I immediately swiveled on my heel, narrowly avoiding an uncharacteristically frantic Charlotte.

A side step to avoid Li, a jump back to make way for Capucine, and then I bent down and threw an arm out to wrap around Malory's middle as she nearly rushed by. My other hand grabbed the fire extinguisher that she was apparently toting around as a weapon of mass destruction.

For the third time today I had a hold on a rampaging Malory. And for the third time today, the second she registered it was _me_ holding her, she panicked.

"Nathaniel!" she squeaked.

She quickly jumped back from me, and I let her now that I had a hold on the fire extinguisher. She was looking up at me wide eyed, with a hint of fear.

I sighed. Things were obviously still very uncomfortable between us, and it showed in those big round eyes.

I closed my own eyes and rubbed my forehead, still trying to get rid of that headache. This conversation probably wasn't going to help the migraine but it was high time that she and I cleared the air.

"Malory, I have no idea what you're doing right now, but either way, we need to talk" I said, before opening my eyes and looking at her.

…she was gone.

I looked back around the corner just in time to see a fast walking Malory disappear through a classroom door.

Seriously.

* * *

"Anyways, that's the _real_ reason I'm late to class" I whispered to an awe struck Violette. It was welding class, and we we're supposed to be paying attention to the safety video playing on the projector, but instead I was quietly recounting my day to the artist next to me. This was one of my favorite classes, because, well, _blow torch!_ And I already knew pretty much everything the video was covering thanks to Auntie. Sweet innocent little Violette also knew everything she needed to know, because surprising as it was, she was one of the best welders in the entire school. She made the most beautiful decorative horseshoe last week. I partially loved this class simply because she was in it. And right now i was loving the fact that Nathaniel _wasn't_ in it.

"That's…unique" Violette said. "Did you really chase them with a fire extinguisher?"

I smiled to myself, "yeah, it was awesome. And even better Rosa and Leigh are back together."

Violette smiled. "That is good" she said, "and what about Nathaniel. Did you tell him about the card getting wrecked?"

"Um," I fidgeted in my seat, "sort of…no."

Violette sighed, "Rory."

"I know I know, but I'm bad at this, and it's not like I can just go up to him and say, 'I'm sorry', believe me I've tried". I glared down at my desk. "Plus, I'm pretty sure i ws annoying him today with all the crazy i caused. And I'm sure he's still mad at me for the paint cans yesterday. So...I don't think he wants anything to do with me right now."

"Rory, you don't know that."

I shook my head, "actually i kind of do. We don't like each other remember? Besides, he's seemed a little off today, like he's in a bad mood."

Violette cocked her head, "Nathaniel? I don't Rory he seemed like he was in a nice mood to me. Just like he always does."

I shrugged. "I know it sounds weird, especially considering how he usually is around me, but every time we ran into each other today he just seemed kind of downtrodden."

Violette bit her lip, "Maybe…you could try something else. What kind of things does he like?"

"Huh?" I said, ever so eloquently.

Violette shrugged, "you know, what is he into? Get him something simple that he likes then you can apologize and cheer him up at the same time."

"That, could actually work," I said, the gears in my head already turning.

Leigh had given Rosa her new dress, at least I assume he's given it to her by now. But that dress was perfect for her, it was something that she would really like. I could easily do the same for Nathaniel. After all if an oblivious boyfriend like Leigh could do it than I totally could as well.

Plus if it's a gift thing then I can just give it to Nathaniel, I don't actually have to hang around for a conversation. I'll just tie a scrap of paper on it with the words 'I'm sorry'. It won't matter that it's not a nice pretty card because there will be a nice pretty gift instead. This could work!

I turned to Violette with a grin, "this is perfect! Okay, what kind of things does he like?"

Violettes eyes widened, surprised by my sudden eagerness, "I don't know" she said, "paperwork?"

"Um, you don't think he actually _likes_ all that paperwork do you?" I was actually curious, I mean he was _always_ doing it. "…should I get him a pen?"

Violette shook her head, "No, you're right, I don't think he really likes it. I'm actually not really sure what he would like. Now that I think about it Nathaniel keeps to himself a lot."

"Yeah" I said crossing my arms. We both sat in silence for a moment, thinking. She was right. Prim-press didn't really share much. I knew he was on the student council, and that he did kendo, and he was second in all the classes (because of course I was first, and midterms would prove it!) but those were all just things he _did_ , not things he liked.

I groaned, thumping my head against the desk. "This is hard" I mumbled into the wood.

"Come on Rory, your smart right?" Violette said, "You notice things. Haven't you noticed anything about him?"

I briefly contemplated pointing out that having a good memory didn't automatically mean that you were hyper aware of everything going on around you all the time. Especially when noticing things meant making connections about people and their preferences. Because in that regard I was almost always in the dark.

"I don't know" I mumbled, still talking to the desk, "he likes detective novels, he said so, but I don't know which ones he's already read. I don't want to get him one he already owns". Not to mention books were expensive. And the ones I saw Nathaniel with were always brand spankin new, the best I could get with my current pocket change was a second hand disaster rampant with doggy eared pages and a missing cover.

I rested my chin on my arms and screwed my eyes shut as I tried to tick off what I could remember, "I guess I've noticed he wares blue ties the most, so I think that's his favorite color. He rolls his eyes every time he sees a girl with a butt ton of makeup caked on. I've never seen him with an Ipod or Mp3 but he keeps earbuds in one of the mesh pockets of his book bag. He has red wine more often the white at lunch, but every single Friday he has cider. Sometimes in the mornings he'll stream the news on his phone. He almost always stays a few minutes late after cultural studies to help clean up. He uses the Cornell method for most of his note taking, except for Latin, where he uses the mapping method. He has a pollen allergy but he'll sit near the windows when they're open. He grimaces a little whenever somebody lights a candle, the only thing he gets out of the vending machines is tea, and his shoulders relax fractionally whenever it rains. But other than that I don't think I've noticed anything."

Violette was just staring at me.

"Oh, and he's ambidextrous."

"Um, okay, well I think we can go from there" Violette said. "Let's see, if he has cider every Friday than he probably really likes it, but neither of us have any noble heritage so we're not allowed to buy alcohol. But maybe you could get him a box of tea?"

I shook my head, "No. I only ever see him getting that one brand, and its eight dollars a can. I can't imagine what a whole box would be. Oh I forgot, he also likes cats!...I think. Well I caught him feeding a bunch of strays once so I think he likes them."

"You're not getting him a cat Rory."

"No, I meant, maybe like a cat thing? Like a sticker or a toy or something."

"I don't think a sticker would be something he'd like, and a toy will probably be just as expensive as a box of tea."

I groaned, plopping my head down yet again.

"Maybe…" Violette started to say, "maybe we could make him one though. You said Leigh made Rosa her dress and that, that made it even more special. I do know how to sew."

I perked back up. "Really?"

Violette shrugged, "it's not that hard. We just need the materials."

"I'll get them during lunch!" I said, excited to finally have a direction to move forward in, "Agatha makes all her own costumes so she keeps a whole bunch of supplies in the spare room."

Violette cocked her head, "Agatha?" she asked curiously.

Immediately my enthusiasm drained. _Shit_ I thought. I hadn't meant to blurt that out. I never meant to blurt anything out but this was _seriously_ something I didn't need my big mouth getting away from me on.

I quickly waved my hand in an 'it doesn't matter' fashion, "um, yeah. She's my…mom." I said, trying to sound casual.

"You call your mom by her first name?"

"Sometimes. Anyways I'll get those supplies and the fabric and then we can put it together after lunch, and I can give it to Nathaniel in our final period Latin Class, and then everything will be back to normal!"

Violette smiled, "if you say so Rory".

* * *

Nathaniel hadn't been in Latin! Apparantly there was some crisis in the cafeteria that our screeching principal couldn't handle on her own and she came bustling in just as class started and whisked Nathaniel and Melody away, yelling the whole time about pastries and garbage disposals. Dammit! Why did this have to be so difficult?

I paced the front courtyard nervously, with the macabre cat doll tucked under one arm. Violette had let me do most of the work, which may not have been the best idea if you ask me. It looked more like a pair of squished together lopsided potatoes with five bean sprouts dangling off it that were supposed to be four legs and a tail. I'd even messed up the ear placement, and it turned out we didn't have any matching buttons so the eyes were all wonky looking.

I stopped walking and sighed. It would be fine. I just needed to give him the stupid doll and get it over with. Everything would be fine.

"Hey Rory!"

"Gah!" I yelled, jumping in surprise. But it was only Rosa. She walked up to me smiling and looking stunning in her new dress.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you" she said, "but I'm going over to Leighs right now for tea and an afternoon snack, and I was wondering if you'd like to come?"

I blinked at her. "Really?" I asked, a little dumbstruck. Was I being invited over somewhere? Like as in, a _friendly_ invite?

Rosa shrugged, "well yeah. You helped us out a lot today, it'd be the least we can do. Please come, Leigh has some great imported earl grey, and I made butternut scones yesterday!"

"Um, yeah, of course" I said, feeling the beginnings of a smile. I was being invited somewhere! And not just because she wanted me to do her homework for her, but because she actually wanted _me_ there.

"Great!" Rosa said, "We have to hurry and catch the bus though. Leigh's car got a little messed up today and he just left with the tow truck. But he'll meet us there. Come on Lysander's saving us a seat."

"Ah, wait but, I-"

"Don't worry I'll pay for your ticket," Rosa said brightly.

"That's not it, its just-" I looked down at the sewing disaster still in my hands. "I…was supposed to give this to Nathaniel," I admitted.

Rosa raised an elegant eyebrow, and a smile began to creep onto her lips. "Oh yeah, Violette told me about the little sewing project. I thought you said you didn't like Nathaniel?"

" _I don't!_ It's just, we've been really weird lately, and I hate it. And I don't know what to do. I tried words, and then a letter and then a card, and just, this is going to make it all better!" I thrust the monstrosity up to her eye level as if that would somehow make it more obvious.

Rosa tilted her head to see me around the fuzz ball mess. "Okay, well we can wait just a minute for him to come out-"

The bus horn honked.

"Uh, actually no we can't" Rosa said. "Wait, there he is!" she pointed at the schools front doors. Nathaniel emerged from them, partially covered in baking flour and trying to shake some of the white substance out of his hair. "Quick. Go talk to him!" Rosa said, giving me a push in his direction.

I gulped.

Okay I can do this. Just give him the stupid doll, and run. It was that easy.

Knees stop shaking.

Geeze I really had no experience with apologizing, maybe I should have listened to all those councilors over the years who told me I needed to make the effort.

I was getting closer. He still hadn't noticed me, I could back out still and he would be none the wiser-no, _no_ I was going to this!

He'd gotten most of the flour out of his hair, so he stopped shaking it out, and raised his head and his eyes landed on-

Not me, because I was walking away…maybe more like running.

"Rory!" Rosa said accusingly as I approached.

I just grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her onto the bus.

"You need to talk to him!" Rosa said.

Lysander was about midway back in the seats, and he looked up at us with a slightly concerned frown. I shoved Rosa into his seat and then plopped my butt down next to her.

"What's going on?" Lysander asked.

"Malory this is obviously important, you need to say something!" Rosa said.

"NO!" I said, "It's not that important!"

"Okay, I know your bad at this stuff. But you took the time to make him a stuffed animal. That is pretty telling of your feelings!"

"My feelings? What do you- _I don't like him!"_

"You like someone?" Lysander asked.

" _No!"_

"YES!" Rosa shouted over me. "It's Nathaniel".

"I don't!"

"He's on the curb" Lysander said.

"He's right there Malory! It's time to confess your feelings!"

"There are no feelings! I just want to apologize!"

"Fine then apologize!"

"FINE!"

I scrambled over a vehement Rosa and a surprised Lysander just as the bus started moving. I yanked the window down, readying the cat toy for launch.

"NATHANIEL!" I yelled.

Nathaniel looked up just as I threw.

The lopsided plushie smacked him in the face.

I heard the sound of Castiels laughter from somewhere as the bus pulled away.

I sat back down. Rosa and Lysander stared at me. I stared at the seat rest in front of me.

…

"I don't think I did that right" I finally say.

Rosa sighed, and banged her head against the seat rest.

Lysander just started chuckling.

* * *

.

.

.

.

AN: Perhaps it should be noted that my favorite shoujo is Toradora, my favorite female character in Avatar (both Last Airbender and Legend of Korra) is Toph, and that my very first OTP was Helga and Arnold. Yeah, I have a thing for girls that aren't, shall we say, the norm.

A lot of Malory is based off of these characters, and others like them. Like during the whole, 'fear me, I am your doom' rant she was giving off while running around with the fire extinguisher, I was totally channeling Toph, who was in turn channeling melon lord.

Also, a few things that I should probably make mention of, and that I honestly should have already. First off, if the class schedule in confusing anyone, I'm using the basic French/most-of-Europe model for class structure. So every day is a little different. Think Harry Potter. You know how Rons always complaining about double potions on Mondays? Yeah, it's like that.

There also can be much longer breaks in between classes with this system, although honestly I'm writing them a bit more frequently and longer than would be strictly normal, but it's the only explanation I can come up with for why, in-game, these kids never seem to actually _go to_ _class._

Other thing to note, I'm basing the hallway system and school architecture _loosely_ off of in-game structure. But the fact is no high school _ever_ would have only three hallways and three classrooms…also a chem lab would never be on the second floor because of gas lines, but we're just going to ignore that. Basically it's significantly bigger than in game, imagine your own school and go from there. I'm writing it fairly big, like hoity toity private school big, with lots of extra space and fancy equipment in each classroom. And while there's a decently large student population, they're nowhere near overcrowded.

It's a public school, which means they have to allow students in, based on living location, but that doesn't stop them from simply shrinking their zone and finding ways to bus in exemplary students. Or from taking large 'donations' from parents that want their children to get the best education possible. Basically it's all one big excuse for me to make Sweet Amoris a fancy private school catering to the nobility and the elite, while still having some of us normal people riff raff thrown into the mix.

As for the nobility thing, I'm not going to explain it in the authors notes, because I'd much rather you all figure it out for yourselves as we go. But you should have picked up by now that politics run a little differently in this story. Though, if anybody has any theories please feel free to comment on them, it might give me some plot bunny ideas.

One last thing: Leigh and Rosa's apology moment. Good, bad, meh, super corny? It was kind of nice to be able to write for an actual relationship, especially seeing as Rosa has a somewhat better grasp on her emotions than muddled up pigheaded Malory does. But do you think I did the characters justice?

Okay, actually, one _more_ thing. Speaking of relationships, thank you to everyone who's being so patient with Nathaniels and Malorys silliness. I think one reason that I worry about the chapters being too long is because I'm just like, _I wanna get to the good stuff already!_ But maybe that's just because I actually know where we're going, and what that good stuff is going to be. I'm going to do everything I can to make the wait worth it, promise.

But so long as I keep the story from getting too far away from me, these two should start to form a connection next chapter.

They're still going to be at each other's throats, with an absolute determination to win, but at least there will also be a level of tolerance underneath it all.

Thankyou for your time and have great day!


	6. Chapter 6

An: I'm siiiiick. Like I'm dying, I'm dead and I've died sick. Ugh. I was blind for two days! Because apparently stupid mucus isn't happy with just clotting up your nose, throat, and lungs, but it also has to travel up your nasal passage and get into your eyes! Since when could mucus even do that!? It scratched my corneas up so bad that I couldn't open my eyes and then even when I could it was still another day before the medicine managed to clear things up enough that it didn't seem like I was constantly looking through a cloud of milk!

Ugh, anyways I'm still too sick to do anything, and I can't exactly see well enough to drive yet. But I can more or less make out the black and white text on my computer screen so I _finally_ managed to finish this chapter. It's been tormenting me for three weeks with it's almost finishedness.

I'm really sorry it took this long.

To everyone who reviewed _thank you so much!_ As with most viruses that last a long time I eventually hit an extremely depressed point and your guys' helpful comments and kind words _really_ helped me out. Seriously guys, I know you weren't there to see it but…we had a moment.

.

.

.

It's Party Time, Dammit!

.

"Thanks again for the tea!" I called, waving goodbye to Rosa while I climbed up the bus stairs. She waved back happily before going back inside Leighs bottom floor apartment. Leigh stood just inside the entrance and right before the door closed I noticed him wrap an arm around her shoulders causing her to giggle. Yeah it was corny and super lovey dovey but I couldn't help the smile I got from seeing the gesture. He was making an effort, that was clear. And I was happy for Rosa.

It was late afternoon and a lot of people were getting off work at this time so the bus was fairly crowded. I ended up standing and holding onto one of the polls about midway back. I slipped my arm free of one of my backpack straps and brought the whole thing forward to hold it at my chest. It was mostly to keep it from swinging around and hitting anybody, but also partly because I didn't have the energy to keep up enough vigilance to be on the lookout for pickpockets. True this bus was mostly filled with older _respectable_ people, and even if there was a potential thief amongst them I'd probably be the last person pegged as a mark. Still, I'd learned to ere on the side of caution when riding busses and subways.

Besides, it gave me another chance to peak at the little keychain Rosa had given me.

I still couldn't believe that she'd done that. She had insisted it was nothing, and that they'd had it in the shop for months, something about their high end cliental not liking cheap accessories. It was a metal pale pink rose, with several little buds and a pair of beaded strings hanging around it. I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Rosayla had one just like it and she said it could be like a friendship key chain.

 _That_ was the main part I was still trying to wrap my head around. I'd done it. I'd actually made a friend. It made me feel all giddy right in the pit of my stomach. Sure I've had people I've been close to in the past, and there was even a time when I've called those people friends.

People I've sat with at the lunch table. People I've hung out with after school. People who I've exchanged birthday gifts and such with before. But all of those people came in and out of my life like I-pod earbuds. Some of them lasted for months, some of them crapped out in a few weeks, and some limped along only half working until I finally just gave up on them.

Eventually I'd just kind of accepted that that would be the inevitable outcome, and after a while I guess I just stopped considering people to be friends. All those people were just people. We flitted in and out of each other's lives and we moved on.

I'd stopped caring.

A new town just meant new streets to wander, a new school just meant new teachers to annoy, new students meant new victims for pranks, and a new 'home' meant let's see how quickly I can piss these people off. I mean it was gonna happen anyways. Might as well challenge myself and at least make things a little interesting.

My current record was seventeen hours.

But Auntie, well she made things different. I don't have a fricken clue why but I think she actually likes having me. And…I'll admit I like her. I like her cookies, and I like how she lets me sleep in sometimes, and I like that she helps me with my homework even when its mostly just her doodling on the margins of my worksheets, and while it's the dorkiest thing ever it's also pretty cool that she spends half her time dressed up like fairy. I like living with her.

So I want to stay here, at least for now.

So I'm laying roots. I'm gonna make friends. And there not gonna be dinky little earbud friendships, they're gonna be like the goddamn nirvana of awesome headphone friendships! Those big ones that you can put stickers on, and that practically scream 'that's right fools, I'm rockin' it'!

And it wasn't _me_ that had to ask Rosa if she and I were friends. _She_ outright declared it at tea.

She had shown me the apartment and Leigh and Lysander hadn't seemed to mind as she dragged me around what was _clearly_ their space. It pretty much screamed 'we are eccentrics and we embrace that'.

The apartment wasn't huge, but there was more than enough space for two guys, a kitchen, and an elaborate living space that was more or less serving as a secondary design room. Rosa had told me that there was a big one in the back of the shop, but it seemed that Leigh's creativity had overflowed to their home. It was still very clean but the walls were tagged with gorgeous sketches and designs, and an entire wall had a work table filled with supplies and three different sewing machines lining it. There was a couch and a television, but the remote was sitting on top of the dvd player and both devices had a small layer of dust on them so I got the feeling that they don't see a lot of use.

The kitchen/dining room was absolutely beautiful with an actual chandelier hanging over the center counter. All the wooden cabinets and drawers had trim on them, some of the corners sporting golden etchings. Glass windowed cabinets allowed you to see inside shelves lined with beautifully painted cutlery and plate ware, and Leigh even had a legit wine rack.

And since the apartment was on the first floor they even had a porch, with white painted railings, and a hanging couch swing that Rosa and I sat on while we all chatted and drank our tea.

I've never been to Leighs shop so I have nothing but Rosas word to go on for how couture it is, but if that apartment is anything to go on than I can pretty much assume that the shop is fairly successful.

The Victorian fashion was still a big thing in Eurode, however it was mostly only worn by the upper-class who could truly afford such things. When I'd first met Lysander I'd actually assumed he might have been an heir apparent or something. But no, he was just a cool guy in a suit.

Leigh makes a lot of opulent designer things and according to Rosa he receives the 'appropriate' clientele for those things. But he'd also designed several lines that were made with coupon cutters like me in mind. It's actually kind of neat that Leigh is able to create all those Lolita and Victorian inspired clothes that the humble masses can afford. There not as upscale or decorative as what you'd find at a fancy dinner party, but I could definitely see Rosas favorite outfit being the uniform for a finishing school or something.

After tea Rosayla had shown me her latest clothing project, a traditional Egyptian inspired line, and then she decided that I _just had_ to go home with something. One of those things was the key chain, the other…

I tried to keep from blushing at the thought of the other 'gift' Rosa had insisted upon. It was shoved into the bottom of my backpack, far away from sight but unfortunately not out of mind. I'd told her she had the wrong idea, that it was completely unnecessary, and also seriously, why do you just have something like this on hand?

If there's one thing I've learned in the three months of attending Sweet Amoris it was that Rosayla Stone was a little…odd.

Maybe our friendship actually did have a shot in hell.

The bus finally reached my block and I shuffled off behind an official looking young business man and a gaggle of girls all loaded up with shopping bags that giggled whenever one of them looked at him. I rolled my eyes, and I was very grateful when they turned right and I went left.

The business guy went my way though as he took off in a brisk walk and I had to give the guy props. Living in this neighborhood and dressed like that...that dude was going places. But those girls might want to reevaluate their attraction if they were looking for a hottie with a bank account.

The walk up to Aunties apartment was uneventful. Well unless you wanted to count the elaborate game of kick the can taking up the entire parking lot, which nearly resulted in two kids tackling me. And there was the league of crotechy crocheting old ladies that were sitting in the apartments communal room, they always felt the need to comment on whatever aspect of me deemed me as a hooligan, their reasoning changed day to day. Auntie says I have to be nice to them, so I stood there for two minutes while they debated on whether or not my converse or my hair was more deserving of reproach. The staircase was littered with what I'm gonna say was 92 pairs of socks for reasons I'm still entirely unaware of. But honestly all of that was kind of the norm for this apartment building so yeah, uneventful.

As I neared the apartment I fished around my pockets for my key, only to realize that the door was already unlocked. And when I stepped inside sure enough, Auntie was already home, sitting at the kitchen counter with a book in one hand and a mug of tea in the other.

Without looking up from her page she said, "Hello sweetie. So I just got off the phone with your teacher."

I froze in the middle of toeing off my shoes and did one of those jilted off balance jerks. I didn't say anything, my mind wasn't blank it was just repeating: _crap crap crap crap crap dang crap crap_ , and I don't think any of that would be helpful right now.

Auntie took a sip of her tea, and turned a page in her book, "Do you remember what I said about detentions last month sweetie?" She looked at me in a way that clearly said: soooo, explain.

I debated briefly about the merits of plausible deniability.

"Okay fine," I blurted "so I may have tackled Capucine and, and spit on her. But she'd been bouncing balls off my head and I don't care what excuse she came up with about being uncoordinated, it was entirely purposeful!"

Auntie blinked at me.

I blinked back.

"You tackled a girl and spit on her?" Auntie finally said.

"Err…yes? Is that…not what you were talking about?"

"…No. I was refereeing to the paint incident from yesterday."

"…Oh."

"Well" Auntie said, and if I didn't know better I'd say she was holding back a smile, "you're definitely not getting out of coming to work with me tomorrow now."

"Kay" I mumbled.

* * *

 _Where the heck are you?_

 _Dude, get over here there's these hot acrobats in leotards!_

 _I am now eating cotton candy without you!_

 _Look if you're gonna chicken out on me at least be man enough to tell me to my face._

 _So get your butt to the damn party and tell me._

 _And then just don't leave_

 _Nathaniel_

 _Cooomme ooonnn. Rolands here and he's beating everyone at that blowup stick bash thing and he won't stop talking shit._

 _Seriously, it'll take you like two minutes to kick his ass_

 _Two minutes isn't asking much_

 _NATHANIEL_

 _You said you'd ride the roller coaster with me and we'd puke our guts out!_

 _Okay, well actually I said that, but you hadn't disagreed._

 _Seriously?! Now your even text ignoring me?_

 _Well fine,_

 _Nathaniel_

 _Nathaniel_

 _Nathaniel_

 _Nathaniel_

 _I hope your phone is beeping obnoxiously at you_

 _Nathaniel_

 _Nathaniel_

 _Faaefhaoiehfoihaeiohfoi!_

 _ANSWER YOUR PHONE!_

 _That's it! I'm coming over and I'm kidnapping you!_

 _AND WE'RE GONNA PARTY HARD!_

I lazily scrolled through the parade of text messages that Mica had been sending me for the past hour. They'd stopped about five minutes ago which meant that he was probably making good on his threat to come 'kidnap' me.

Maybe it's a good thing I won't be here by the time he shows up.

It took approximately 40-45 minutes to drive from Mica's family estate to my house, so given the way he drives he'll be here in about twenty minutes. But Sinclair wanted to leave in less than half that time so Mica would be showing up to an empty house.

I had no doubt that I'd be getting another long list of texts when that happened.

But it wasn't exactly like I had a choice in the matter. Father had left for the weekend on a business trip and taken Mother with him, and Amber was spending the day and night at a friend's house which meant it was just me and the staff for most of the weekend. Only because it was just me, Father had decided to give the cook and our two maids the day off as well, so it was actually just me and our Butler Sinclair.

Even though nobody's said it, we all know that he's here to keep an eye on me. Seventeen years old and Father still doesn't trust me. Probably thinks I'm going to throw a wild party or something.

Amber did that once and guess who got blamed.

I wouldn't have minded the peace and quiet so much if it weren't for Sinclair being so blatant about 'keeping an eye on the boy'. My bedroom door was still locked from the outside. He'd declared lights out at nine o'clock last night and it was now nearly eleven in the morning. His reasoning for why I still needed to be stuck in here; apparently I couldn't be trusted enough to not wander off to watch Saturday morning cartoons when I should be studying.

Idiot. I didn't even watch cartoons, and I had many more distractions in here. After all, my book collection was excessively more entertaining than any mindless drivel of flashing colors.

I couldn't even use the excuse of needing to go to the bathroom to get out of here, because being the oldest, I got the secondary master bedroom. Which meant I had my own bathroom. Yippee for me.

When my family had first moved into this house several years ago I had been honestly surprised and a little bit touched that my parents felt I should be receiving something before Amber.

Now I wondered if Father hadn't had extreme groundings in mind all along.

As soon as the thought entered my mind I immediately felt bad and shook it away.

What am I thinking? That wasn't it. Father and Mother wouldn't have been considering such things when we moved here. It's not like any parent ever _wanted_ to punish there child.

It was a nice gift for them to let me have this room and nothing else. I shouldn't be turning it around, acting like a whiny teenager and using it as some kind of misplaced accusation against my parents.

I could practically feel the seedlings of self-hatred begin to grow and twist in my stomach so I quickly shook the thoughts away. Father had left me with one hell of a lecture yesterday about how I needed to reevaluate the way I treated my family. We were supposed to be united and care about each other. And I honestly couldn't disagree with him when he told me I'd been so self-involved that I'd been doing a poor job of it lately.

And here I was again feeling sorry for myself and thinking dark thoughts about them all.

I sighed and tried to focus on the textbook in front of me. It was my Latin text and next to it sat my many notes and another book with a deep red cover and gold lettering proclaiming it: Untranslated Manuscripts for the Studious and the Learned, Volume three. Our Latin teacher Mr. Roleck, had an entire shelf full of the little red books. We got extra credit for every manuscript we managed to puzzle out and so far I was half way through the seventh book of the twelve he had available.

I was actually pretty good at Latin, pretty good at languages in general I suppose. Like most kids of our standing, Amber and I had been introduced to a variety of languages before we were even out of primary school. Amber only cared enough to be acquainted with the 'fashionable' languages but I had taken to the subject with quite some vigor. My tutors had been more than willing to feed my hunger. So when I started Latin II this year, with Mr. Roleck, I was already leaps and bounds ahead of most of the class.

Well, _I was_ until a certain annoying bullheaded girl showed up.

Malorys first day of classes at Sweet Amoris still stuck out like a flashing neon sign in my memory. When I'd initially bumped into her in the hallways she hadn't made much of an impression on me. She was just another student, just another person I had to deal with in the maelstrom of high school. But then her file had been displaced forcing me to actually interact with her, all the while listening to her seemingly endless supply of sarcastic remarks. But eventually, file found, picture and fee supplied, and Malory Jones would slip into the background and become nothing more than a piece of paper I occasionally had to make notes on.

And then ten minutes later we had Latin together.

I couldn't believe it at first. The girl had been so uncivilized during our earlier dealings and Mr. Rolecks AP Latin II class wasn't exactly known for being easy. But I shrugged it off, what did it matter to me if she took a class she was going to fail. Considering the way she has spent almost the entire first half of the period either doodling or starring out the window I eventually figured she had signed up for the class because she'd assumed it would be an easy A.

Well Mr. Roleck was going to dissuade her of that notion.

Mr. Roleck was by no means a _nice_ teacher. Not to say that he's mean. He's fair but he's just very, well, _harsh_. You either work you butt off or you don't pass. Personally I loved his class. He challenged and pushed and made you work for every single thing, and from the few conversations I've had with the man I've gathered that he has the same approach to life. If you want something: fight for it.

So there we all were going through our usual morning lecture full of rapid fire questions that Mr. Roleck would shoot off to the class and sometimes to students individually. I had answered the most, with Theodesius, the other class brainiac, right behind me.

Then Mr. Roleck decided it was time to play the word match game.

"This should work out well," Mr. Roleck said, "now that Mrs. Jones is here we'll finally have even teams." Malory looked up at the mention of her surname. Before she came there were only eleven people in the class.

"Allow me to explain the rules for our new student," Mr. Roleck said, as he lifted the role down diagrams that covered the rooms' five white boards, "It's a simple enough game, before class I wrote these Latin Roots and modern words across the boards. The class is divided into two teams, each side will have one student come up and try to match as many words and roots as they can as quickly as they can. They go until they've finished a board or once they've done all that they can do, then it will be the next students turn. Simple, yes?"

He turned to look at Malory who while still looking uninterested, was at least paying attention now. She nodded to the question that had obviously been directed at her.

"Good," Mr. Roleck said, "Well then, why don't you come up first for your side of the class Mrs. Jones," he looked at me, "Nathaniel," he simply said, throwing a thumb over his shoulder at the boards.

Yep, he obviously intended to teach Malory a lesson about paying attention in his class. Having her go up against me meant having the best student show her up, (and considering the way teenagers minds worked), most likely embarrassing her in front of her peers.

At least the other half of the class had Theodesius on their team. I could tell he was itching to get up here. Theodesius was, well he was smart, but he wasn't as smart as he thought he was. Honestly I would feel bad for him, (considering how much time and money his parents put into tutoring him), if he wasn't such a complete bloated headed little toad. And quite frankly anybody who refuses to shorten a pretentious name like Theodesius to something simple like Theo deserves to get knocked down a few pegs.

When I took my place at the board and caught Malory's eye I could tell the moment she recognized me. There was a brief widening of her eyes followed by a petulant scowl. It was the first expression I'd seen on her all class.

I rolled my eyes. I didn't _want_ to embarrass her. But Mr. Roleck had a point about being engaged in class. Maybe I could just go a little slower than I usually would, at least until Theodesieus came up to the board.

But Malory had turned her glare to the pen in her hand, and she just looked at it for a moment, then back to the board, a side glance at me, and then something just snapped behind those green eyes.

I didn't it know then, but it was on.

Mr. Roleck gave us an; "On your mark…get set… _go!"_

I matched one of the words right in front of me and went to do a second when Malory's blue pen shot out and got it before me. She did it again with the next word I reached for. What the heck? Was she deliberately trying to get the words that we're easier for me to reach first?

I saw her going for another that was near my shoulder.

My arm darted out before I'd even found the root it matched too. But my eyes found it a second later.

Malory was already squeaking her pen in her rush for another word.

Back and forth, back and forth. Our pens flew across the board in a mad dash to get done first. At one point Malory even ducked beneath my arm and would have bumped into me if I hadn't reared back in surprise.

Soon there was only one word and root left. Our pens flew for it at the same time. Luckily for me it was higher on the board, easy reach for me, but just barely within Malory's fully stretched out arms reach. But just as my pen landed on it Mr. Rolecks voice rang out from the back of the classroom where he'd been watching, "do the next board," he said.

Both our heads snapped back to look at him. I'd actually kind of forgotten that he and the rest of the class were there, the class that was now staring at the two of us with identical wide eyed expressions. Mr. Roleck however was just standing there, leaning against the back wall, with his arms crossed, and a considering look on his face.

Malory moved before I did. Ducking under my outstretched arm, again. She jumped over to the next board and started connecting its words.

I hurriedly finished the line I'd been making and joined her at the board as well. And so it began again.

We covered the second board in blue and red lines. Malory didn't bother taking the extra second it toke to reach for the higher words and instead she literally jumped, occasionally bumping my arm or me in the process. When the second board was nearly complete, Mr. Roleck told us to do the next one. By the time that one was done we didn't even need him to tell us to do the fourth.

I'd never actually gone this fast before. Sure I loved this class, and I always worked hard to do my best in it resulting in several sleepless nights, but this was something else. This wasn't just the mundane stay on top of it enough to keep that jerk Theodesius's head from swelling. I knew I could beat him, sometimes without even trying all that hard. But _this._ I could actually feel an adrenaline rush.

We finished the fifth board at the exact same time. Immediately I began counting all the little red lines across the five boards. I'm pretty sure Malory was doing the same with the blue lines. It couldn't have taken more than half a minute before I looked down at her just as she looked up,

" _56_ " I said.

Only….at the same time she said the exact same thing.

It was almost comical the way both our eyes widened before snapping back to the boards to count each other's marks. And gods dammit, there really were just as many blue lines as there were red.

"Not bad," Mr. Roleck called from the back of the class. "Though, I think I'm going to have you two go last next time we play this."

I'm still not sure if it was Mr. Rolecks plan all along but Malory was definitely much more engaged after that. For the rest of the class she toke notes and had raised her hand at nearly every question he asked.

And then we ended up having math together, and then history, and then classical studies, and class after class for that entire week I was greeted with the sight of a fiery eyed Malory Jones.

And here we were three months later, still wrapped up in our petty little rivalry. I don't know why I let that girl get to me so much. It wasn't like being the top student was _that_ important to me. It mattered to my parents sure, but it's not like they'd ever know. The only classes mother ever frequently checked up on were my economics class and my cultural studies. Malory wasn't in economics and quite frankly she was terrible at cultural studies. The girl cannot dance.

But heck, I could maintain my top student status without being drawn into this ridiculous feud. I just needed beat her had midterms. There was no need to get sucked into every stupid competition that came up between the two of us.

But for some reason every time I saw that look in her eyes, the one that said 'bring it', I just couldn't help myself. I needed to win.

Granted I hadn't seen that look lately.

I'm glad I'm alone right now, that way nobody could see me as I slouched and banged my head against the desk.

What was wrong with me? I should be happy that Malory was avoiding me. It gave me more time to focus on my _real_ studies. Father will want an update on everything I did this weekend when he comes home on Monday. I should really stop thinking about the most annoying girl in the world. I mean, quite frankly if this juvenile rivalry were to end it would probably be a good thing, for the both of us. So maybe it would be for the best if I just…went along with things as they are.

I glanced at my nightstand where the macabre little cat doll slumped across the corner, smiling its sideways 3 shaped mouth and looking back at me with its mismatched button eyes.

At first the doll had confused me, well, okay actually at first it had surprised me. Mostly because it came flying at me from a shouting Malory on a moving bus. But once she was gone the felt creation had only confused me.

I'd stared at it the entire walk to kendo, trying to figure out what in the world could have been going through that annoying girls head. Was the toy the beginnings of some kind of elaborate prank? I'd squished it a few dozen times to see if there was anything besides fuzz inside.

I just couldn't understand it or _her_.

But then it hit me about halfway through kendo. The doll was an apology.

The realization only confused me further. It hadn't even occurred to me that Malory would feel the need to do that. After the fight we'd had I'd apologized to her and honestly that had been the end of the whole affair for me. I hadn't expected a return on the apology, in fact such a thing had never even crossed my mind. People didn't generally do such things for me and I had accepted that as a fact of my life a long time ago.

And she hadn't _just_ given me the doll, because it was obvious that the felt creation was hand sewn. And I wasn't sure if the mismatching button eyes were an intentional attempt at being cute or if they were another reflection of a lack of skill on the seamstress's part. So she'd either gotten someone to make it or…more likely, she'd done it herself.

And that was…sweet.

Which is the last word I would ever associate with a girl like Malory Jones. She was stubborn, she was pig headed, she was arrogant, bratty, obnoxious, uncouth, and all around just a royal pain in the…well, anyways it was very confusing.

There was a knock at my door, and without waiting for an invitation to come in Sinclair undid the lock and opened it. "We're leaving now," was all he said.

I nodded to show that I understood, and with that he left me alone to gather my things.

Perhaps it will be good to go to the library, it'll be easier to focus there and right now that's what I needed to do. After all, Father will be wanting that update on all of my progress this weekend when he and mother return Monday evening.

I grabbed a duffle bag with a note taped to it for Mica. Just because I wasn't going to his party didn't mean I hadn't gotten him anything. I was going to give it to him during kendo but perhaps if I left it at the front gate for him to find it would assuage his aggravation for me not being here. I hurried down to the stairs and out to the car, Sinclair was already in the driver's seat.

I'll worry about the little doll and the girl associated with it later.

* * *

"You know, if you wanted to punish me, this might not have been the best way to go about it," I said, while holding another little girls hand has she did her ballerina twirl. Her frilly two toned tutu fluttered around with her giggles. The music stopped and she curtseyed to me before trotting off to her friends at the craft table.

Despite almost always ducking out of coming with Auntie to her work I actually did enjoy helping her. People were always surprised to learn that I liked hanging out with kids, they were even more surprised to discover that I was good at it. Not sure why it's such a shocker, I mean why would I, socially inept Malory, ever get along with an entire group of people that were consistently silly, awkward, and honest to the point of being rude? A real mystery for the ages that one.

If you ask me, kids were easy, they made sense, adults not so much.

"It's not about punishment," Auntie said, picking up various toys and dolls that had become scattered across the floor during the last two hours, "it's about learning a lesson."

I bent down to start helping her. Story time had gotten a little nuts today when Auntie had encouraged all the kids to grab a doll and take turns enacting what they thought should happen next. Today's hero had started off by wandering through an enchanted forest as many tales tend to begin, but had ended with him commandeering a velociraptor and becoming best friends with a plushy snowman, who was really Jack Frost under a spell, and of course he had a crush on Elsa, and all of them ended up on a train where they ordered pizza which was delivered by Batman.

"And how is this," I shook the pillow turtle doll I was holding, "teaching me a lesson."

Auntie shrugged, "well this," she jostled her own toy; a floppy unicorn with glitter tassels for a tail, "is not so much a lesson and more about getting you to interact with society in a positive manner. Although I'll admit that the outfit is a bit of a punishment." She gestured to the clothes I was currently being forced to ware, a frilly just above the knees skirt, with pink hearts and ribbon making up the seams, and a ballerina top (with even more ribbon) that had elbow length ruffle sleeves. The wings that were stitched into the back of it sometimes got caught on things but Auntie had made them fairly durable. Everything was in corresponding colors to Aunties own fairy outfit, making me the fairy godmothers young protégé and it was up to the children of the world to teach me kindness and help me understand what it meant to be a fairy godmother. Kids _loved_ our mock story, and always took great lengths to express all that I needed to know about being a good fairy.

I'll admit, it was a clever idea of Aunties, and it was a great way to get them talking about kindness and what that meant. How I felt about the outfit however…

Auntie smiled in a way that almost looked like a smirk, "it helps that you're a teenager and still find these kind of things mortifying," she said.

I looked away, scowling, not wanting to admit how right she was. I could only imagine how horrified I'd be if Amber or one of her cronies ever caught me in this getup. The whole drive here I'd been slouching behind the car window, and I'd refused to put the tiara and wings top on until we'd arrived.

"As for the lesson part however," Auntie said while we deposited our armloads into the toy trunk, "that part can be now, if you're feeling ready to talk about it."

I glanced at the ground while absently playing with my turtle-pillows arms, "the second detention wasn't my fault," I mumbled.

"According to your teacher you threw paint over three other students," Auntie said patiently.

"Yeah well, I didn't mean to," I said, "it was an accident."

"That's some accident," Auntie said, I peeked at her through my bangs and there was a faint smile on her lips. She sat down on the bed nearest us and motioned for me to join her. I did, bringing my turtle-pillow with me, clutching it to my chest and using the fuzzy shell as a chin rest.

"But it _was_ an accident," I said, "I was just trying to help Nathaniel and then something bumped into my back and all the paint went flying out, and I _really_ didn't mean to."

"Nathaniel? Isn't that the boy you don't like, why where you trying to help him?"

"Cause…because."

"Just because?"

"…Yes."

"…Malory."

"…Agatha."

Auntie just raised an expectant eyebrow at me, declaring that this little evading game was now over.

"Ugh, okay fine" I said, "I might…have felt kind of bad about…about some other stuff, and so I was just trying to be nice to him and, and not screw up, but I did screw up! And there was so much paint, and with my luck I probably ruined his favorite tie or something, not that that's a huge loss, almost all of them are blue anyways, and there stupid and dumb. I mean they just make him seem more proper than he already has any right to be, because he's such a perfect, altruistic, goody-goody-"

"Breath Malory, breath," Auntie patiently patted my knee, drawing me out of my ravings.

I took a deep breath, and let it out. "Anyways, um, I was trying to apologize, and so I was just trying to help him, a little."

"Is this boy the same reason you were making a card at three in the morning?"

I nodded, bumping my chin against the turtle several times.

Auntie sighed, I felt her hand begin to stroke my short hair. It was nice, and I was glad we'd gotten to a point where touching was okay. "And did you actually apologize to him?" Auntie asked, but from her tone and actions I kind of got the feeling she already knew the answer.

"Yes…no, maybe, I don't know," I groaned, burying my head in the turtle.

"Well, did he accept your apology?"

"That's what I don't know," somehow she heard me despite my voice being muffled by several layers of felt and fuzz.

"Then sweetie maybe you need to ask him."

I peeked at her with one eye, "I don't think he wants to talk to me."

Auntie shrugged, "maybe not. But if he's as 'goody-goody' as you say I think that he'll at least hear you out. And honestly, this is less about him and more about what _you_ need to do. This has been bothering you sweetie, which means somethings wrong and that you have to do something about it. You _know_ what that something is."

I groaned. I already knew that she'd made her point, and even worse I agreed with it. But I wanted to indulge in petulant childishness, even if it was only for another few seconds. "But I don't want to," I complained.

Auntie smiled, "well to bad. Part of being an adult is-"

"Is doing things we don't want to do," I finished the sentence with her, granted a lot less cheerfully than she said it.

"Good," Auntie said, "now…as for the other detention…"

I looked away in sudden embarrassment, "okay, that one might be less of an accident."

"You spat in another girls eye."

"…she had it coming."

"Never the less, violence is not the answer. One week of extra chores, deal?"

"Deal," I mumbled. I couldn't help but notice that Auntie didn't call me out on declaring that Capucine deserved a loogie in her eye.

"Right, well then," Auntie clapped her hands on her knees and stood up, "we'll say that that's the punishment, as for the lesson…" she left the thought hanging, smiling down at me and nodding towards the doorway.

"What… _now?!_ " I said, going rigid.

"No time like the present!" Auntie said cheerfully, "and honestly Sweetie, I know you slept badly last night, and you can't do that for the rest of the weekend. Need to be ready to learn come Monday, after all it is midterm's week."

"But, but its Saturday! I mean he has to deal with me all week, there's no way he'd want to see me on one of his days off!"

"Sweetie, I want you to be honest with yourself. If you put this off till Monday, do you think there might be a chance you'll work yourself up and chicken out?"

"…"

"Be honest."

"Maybe."

Auntie just smiled at me.

"But-"

"Rip the band aid off Sweetie, just get it over with." She pulled me to my feet and started steering me towards the door. I didn't resist, but that didn't stop my mouth.

"But, but what about all the kids. You said you needed my help today".

"I think I'll be fine," Auntie said, rolling her eyes and looking to the gaggle of children that were surrounded by multiple off duty and on break hospital staff. Aunties visits where an attraction for all ages, and it was pretty normal for her to end up with several helpers wherever she went.

"But I don't have a change of clothes!" I spluttered, gesturing at my fairy outfit.

Auntie paused for a moment considering this. She had no problem going out into public in her getup so I bet it didn't even occur to her that I would have to do so to get to Nathaniel's house. And then…Amber would able to see me.

After some deliberation Auntie finally shrugged, "eh, consider it another punishment then."

"What?! But I thought that's what the chores where for!"

"You tackled and spat in someone's eyes sweetie, I think I'm aloud to dish out some consequences for that," she grabbed my shoulders and began steering me towards the door again.

I groaned, "Just so you know, theres a good chance I'm ripping these wings off out of frustration before the days done."

"I'll have the sewing kit ready when you get home. Remember to look both ways before crossing the street! By sweetie!"

And out the door I went.

I left the turtle at the floors reception desk.

As I made my way through the halls, nobody in the children's hospital spared me, the girl in the outrageous costume, a second glance. Searching for blondies address in the phonebook inside the booth out front of the hospital got me a few sideways looks. On the bus, people….starred. I in turn stared out the window, _praying_ that this encounter wasn't going to be as horrifying as I was imagining it.

There'd be some snide remarks from Amber, that was a certainty. And it would probably carry over into the week, but I could handle the witch and her minions. Just so long as she wasn't there to overhear whatever it was I was going to say to Nathaniel, I hadn't figured out what yet.

But if Nathaniel decided to laugh, which he probably would, that was not going to make this any easier. And Auntie was kind of right, or well, completely right, I needed to do this.

* * *

I could not _believe_ that idiot.

After I drove all the way over here, nearly rear ending a soccer mom, and getting into a shouting match with a grouchy old man over where it was acceptable to park, and Nathaniel didn't even have the decency to be home! So what if his dad was a jerk, and his butler was a sniveling toady brute. We we're supposed to rebel at our age, so I was getting that idiot to my birthday party even if it killed me!

"The entire point of this neighborhood is to get away from you hooligans!"

I rolled my eyes, ignoring the old man that was still gibbering at me. If there's one thing that high and mighty assholes like him hated it was when the youth of today was being disrespectful. That and the dreads, they all hated my dreads. I made it very obvious that I wasn't paying attention to a word he said while pulling out my phone to type out a very well thought out and persuasive text to Nathaniel on why he should ditch the crotchety butler and come to the party.

' _YOU ASSHOLE!_ '

And with that task completed I hit the send button.

Not that I actually blamed the blonde know it all for being gone, but I knew from years of experience that often the only way to get Nathaniel to engage in a social life was through arguing, haggling, bullying, and sometimes kidnapping. He hasn't had a stroke yet, so I figure I'm doing something right.

The trouble with Nathaniel was finding a way to disengage him from his 'I must please my father and uphold the family honor' mode. That guy had a prove yourself complex, no doubt about it. But sometimes it wasn't his fault, like right now. I'm willing to bet my favorite bean bag chair, the one that looked like an angry bird and that when you sat in it, it practically ate your butt (I had a camera set up in my game room simply to record the many ways people tried to get out of that thing), that Nathaniel not being her wasn't his doing. Especially considering that the family's two main cars were missing.

 _I'm coming to get you. Stay put this time!_

I typed out the second message and hit send. The old guy next to me was still ranting about my hooliganess. I'll admit, the dreds do project a certain image. But common guy, I'm waring a button down that was probably more expensive than your entire weeks' worth of medication.

I knew that Nathaniel was at the library and I knew that Sinclair, the butler from pompous jerks ville, would be there to keep an eye on him. That man hated my guts, all because of that one time I turned his hair green…and maybe also that time I covered the foyer in jell-o, it could also be something to do with the lobster dinner I ruined. How was I supposed to know those things didn't come pre-killed. Point is Sinclair hated me, and if he caught sight of me well, busting Nathaniel out might be the least of my worries.

It's a good thing that blondies father still had no idea about my existence because being able to pull the wool over Sinclair's eyes was one of the few things Natty and I still held against the butler. He couldn't stand the fact that two teenage boys had outwitted him so many times and he would never admit the fact to his illustrious master.

"Hoodlums have no place here," the old man was still raving, only now it sounded like he was on some practiced speech, "they completely ruin the sincerity of this beautiful neighborhood, the lot of you, playing your rackety music, and driving your vehicles at ridiculous speeds, and putting graffiti everywhere, and- "I tuned the old timer out, focusing back on my phone.

There were still no responses, and honestly that bugged me a little. It didn't worry me, I wasn't quite at that stage yet, just bugged. Normal behavior for Natty when I was being intentionally annoying was a quick _stop texting me,_ or _Mica No,_ or his favorite, _shut up._

I was about to get back in my jeep when the bus pulled up, blocking my vehicle in. I waited another moment, wishing the bus would hurry up so that I could get away from the grouch yelling at me.

But when the buses only passenger for this stop came into view all thoughts of leaving were suddenly erased from my mind.

She was a just below average sized girl about my age, thin hourglass figure, and a short haircut. It wasn't a love at first sight moment or anything, far from it, it wasn't even my male teenage hormones going 'hot girl, must stare!', even if she was kind of cute. No, the thing that caught my eye was the bright colorful way she was dressed, and the fact that her fairy wings got caught in the bus door as it shut.

She began scrabbling with the wire fabric cellophane mesh constructions and the door, and just barely managed to dislodge herself before the bus pulled away. She huffed a glare at the retreating vehicle, fixed her tiara, and stomped her way onto the curb. I stared at her and didn't bother to cover it up. The old man next to me suddenly stopped in his ranting and stared at her too.

She came to the curb right next to us, noticed our starring and crossed her arms. "What?" she asked challengingly.

"That's what I was thinking," I said.

Before she could say anything back the old man threw up his hands and yelled, "Hooligans! Muddying up our oasis of culture and refinement. This neighborhood is for upstanding citizens! You young lady and your silly new age gang dress nonsense are not welcome here. I am telling you this one time to leave before I call the authorities."

I raised an eyebrow at the old man then looked back to the girl who was in turn looking at the man like he was an escapee from the loony farm.

"You part of a gang?" I asked her, genuinely curious to see what she thought of such an accusation.

She snorted, "Yeah, we're called the sugar plum fairies and our gang symbol is making little halos over our heads. Better watch out, I'm packing glitter."

Oh I liked her.

The old man huffed, "what is today's youth coming to," he moaned. Hey I was wonder when he was gonna use that line. "You young man," he pointed at me, "can just take your girlfriend and leave!"

"Woah woah," I said, "she's not my girlfriend."

"I've never met this guy before," the girl said.

The old man turned and began walking away, presumably back towards his house, "I'm calling the neighborhood watch!" he shouted at us. Figures the guy didn't have a cell phone on him, probably was on his way to use the old rotary style phone he kept in his living room.

Whatever, I was just about to leave anyways.

The girl still in front of me huffed. "Great," she mumbled, before lifting up her brightly colored outer skirt. There were several layers underneath it designed to make it all fluff out so I couldn't see anything promiscuous, even so I couldn't help the jab that came out of my mouth.

"You trying to flash me now? People really will think you're my girlfriend."

She rolled her eyes, "Sorry, you're not that cute. This is just were I keep my arsenal of stickers."

I thought she was joking, still playing along with the gang accusation, but no she actually pulled a handful of stickers out from a pocket that was sewn onto the underside of her skirt.

I laughed. I didn't know who this girl was but damn if she wasn't interesting. She raised an eyebrow at me, but otherwise ignored me in favor of shuffling through her stickers. When she found the one she was looking for she squinted at the back of it before asking me, "You wouldn't happen to know where, one five thirty three South Langaster way is would you?"

She just got even more interesting.

I nodded and threw a thumb over my shoulder, pointing at the big house that had brought me to this holy oasis of a neighborhood as well.

The girl's eyes widened as she got a good look at the house beyond the gate. Nathaniel's family had a pretty decent front drive, but you could still easily see the second and third floors over the gate. There was technically a fourth floor but that was mostly just the tower.

"There a reason you're looking for the Rozen house?" I asked, drawing the girl out of her gob smacked stupor.

She looked at me, then back at the house, then back at me. "That's not a house!" she finally said, "That's a fricken mansion, there's a parapet!" She pointed at the wrap around walkway that covered most of the east side of the building and ran from the gardens to the third floor of the tower. "Look at that thing, its huge! There's got to be a foyer, and a sitting room, and a freaking library, they've probably got a porch that they call a veranda! I bet you there's even a damn feast hall somewhere in there."

"Its…not a castle," I said. I'd personally never even thought about the size of Nathaniel's house, especially considering the fact that I _did_ live in a castle. A small one, but, still.

"There is a _tower!_ " the girl said, "with a balcony!"

"That's just Ambers room," I said.

"Are you serious!" the girl said indignantly, then she huffed and threw her arms up, "Oh that just figures. Of course pom-pom princess sleeps in a fricken tower. Gods I've gotta start calling her something else, she actually is a princess! Probably sees that moniker as a compliment."

"I take it you're not here to see Amber then?"

"What?" the girl said, as if suddenly remembering I was there, "Oh, um, no, no I am not. I…guess you know the family?"

I nodded.

"Okay, well I'm looking for Nathaniel…he's Ambers older brother."

I felt a smile creeping onto my face. Now why would Natty be having a cute girl dressed like a fairy looking for him? This just got even _more_ interesting. "Yeah I know him," I said, "he's actually the reason I'm here too, but he's not home."

The girls' shoulders slumped and she crossed her arms, glaring at the sidewalk. "Great" she mumbled again, "figures really."

"Why do you need him?" I asked.

"Huh? Oh, um no reason!" she quickly said.

I just smiled again. "Right, well I'm on my way to go get him," I said pointing at my jeep. "But if you've got 'no reason' to see him then I won't bother offering a lift."

She rolled her eyes, "Sure I'll just get into the car of the dreadlock wierdo I've never met before."

"Says the girl dressed like something out Neverland."

There's a brief standoff of us glaring at each other.

She huffed, "Okay, touché," she looked at me consideringly for another few seconds before asking, "What's your name?"

"Michael Hailway, people call me Mica. You can look me up on your phone. I guarantee google will prove my existence." It would, I had a Wikipedia page and everything. Sometimes I edited it with inane crap just to see if there'd be any funny media reactions. "And you?" I asked her.

"Malory…Jones. I don't, think google knows me."

I shrugged, "That's cool. Not everyone gets to be of the privileged few constantly stalked by internet search engines. Trust me, it's not all it's cracked up to-" something suddenly clicked in my head, "wait, did you say _Malory?! Oh my gods,_ your _Nathaniel's_ Malory!

The girls eyes suddenly widened and she began spluttering like some owl having a stroke, "I'm Nathaniel's _what!?"_ she gasped.

Oh, wait, that did not come out the way I meant it.

"No, uh, I meant you're that girl that he's always talking about."

"He _always?!"_ she squeaked. She legitimately just squeaked.

"…I'm making this worse aren't I? I meant, you two are like your schools top students right? And you butt heads over that, he's told me about you. Were friends, so when he vents I listen."

"Oh…well, then yes. Yes I am that Malory…he vents about me?"

"In great detail. It's actually kind of annoying sometimes." She didn't seem to know what to say as she looked to the pavement and began unconsciously twiddling her fingers. As I looked at her, an idea started to form in my head.

"So, wait, if you are that Malory, than you're another braniac like Natty?" I asked.

She quirked an eyebrow, "Natty?"

I smirked, "told you we were friends."

"He hates it that name doesn't he?"

"Oh you have no idea"

The jab at Nathaniel got a small smile out of her, and it made her stop fidgeting.

"Um, to answer your question, yeah I guess I'm pretty smart," she said, shrugging.

I debated briefly on what I was about to ask, on one end it could really piss Nathaniel off, but on the other hand I'm starting to think I can't bust the blonde out alone. Also I'm pretty sure that having these two 'geniuses' in a room together would be extremely funny. "I need your help" I said.

She raised an eyebrow, "With?"

"Busting Nathaniel out of the library."

"…The library?"

"Yes."

"The one where they keep all the books? That library. "

"Yes that library."

"And Nathaniel is trapped in the Library because…?"

"Short version; because his dads and ass. Slightly more complicated version; because the family butler is most likely there acting as Nattys jailer and warden. The guy hates me and this won't be the first time I've helped Nathaniel escape right out from under him. And Sinclair is also kind of an ass."

"…Okay, two things, they actually have legit butler, and the guy's name is _Sinclair?_ That can't be his real name?"

I shrugged, "To be honest, I'm not even sure if he's a real butler. All he ever seems to do is follow Nathaniel's dad, around and do whatever the guy says."

"That…sounds slightly creepy."

"Yeah well Sinclair is _kinda_ creepy, so…"

Malory looked at the pavement and rubbed her arm for a moment. "So…Nathaniels dad is…kind of strict?" she asked hesitantly.

"Oh gods _yes!"_ I said, throwing my head back, "he has a stick shoved so far up his ass I'm amazed it's not poking his eyes out!"

Malory stood there for another second, obviously thinking something over, "I still don't know you," she finally said.

I shrugged, "Well you do know Nathaniel, and I'm his best friend, so what does that tell you about me?"

"…Okay fine let's go."

"Awesome," I grinned, "Oh one more thing, I'm banned from the library so you're gonna have to go in alone at first."

"Again, when you say 'library' you know that that means the place where they house books right?"

* * *

I loved library's.

Just the idea of them always gave me a sense of hope for humanity. We as a species valued knowledge and learning so much that we had built an entire system dedicated to that one goal.

It also helped my mood that Sinclair had gotten bored of just staring at me and he'd left me alone to go look at magazines or something.

I was sitting at a table on the second floor, right next to the railings. I loved this spot because it was above the bottom floor, where most of the hustle and bustle took place, and because it was where there was the best natural lighting. The building was three stories tall, with a glass dome making up the ceiling of the buildings center. The second and third floors had giant circular cutouts with the same diameter of the dome, allowing natural light to filter down all the way to another glass circle on the bottom floor, this one made to allow people to see the underground pool that fed the giant water fountain outside.

The fountain was right in the middle of the city's cultural mall. All the buildings where made in a giant circle around it, and only foot traffic was aloud for the whole area. There was a live theater next to the library, and a park across from it. Out front of the art gallery where they kept these huge glass sculptures was one of the best places in the world to have an ice cream if you asked me. Which was easy to do, because one of the shops here was this amazing old fashioned candy parlor. Even my mother, who was forever dieting, couldn't say no to their licorice.

I looked up from my notes for a moment, taking in the familiar setting and feeling content for the first time all weekend. Despite it being late autumn, it was a nice day, and the library staff had opened a couple of windows allowing the faint smell of cinnamon from the next door bakery to hang in the air. There was the sound of a constant quiet bustle of activity coming from the floor below me. People coming in and out, checking out books, using the computers. I could see the ancient librarian Miss Felstien, oh couldn't really see anymore, still somehow managing to do story time over in the kids section. Harvey, head of the library's archives, went bustling by, frantic as always and carrying a huge armload of papers. There was an older couple sitting in some of the lounge chairs drinking out of steaming mugs and playing a game of checkers. One of the library aids was fixing a knocked over sign that said there was a puppet show in room b. Malory, in a colorful outfit, was wandering around some of the aisles and looking lost.

…

I should pretend I didn't see that.

It would really be in my best interests to pretend that I didn't see anything.

I should just stay here, keep studying, and carry on like nothing was happening. It would be the best way to avoid any impending chaos.

…

It would really _really_ be for the best.

…

Dammit.

I got up and headed for the staircase.

By the time I found her I immediately knew that my earlier instincts where completely accurate. I also knew that there was no way I could just turn around and pretend that I'd never seen her now. Because it wasn't just Malory in front of me, it was Malory standing on her toes on top of a table, one of her arms half way out a window, and the other helping a scrambling Mica in through said window.

Neither one of them had seen me, so they both jumped in surprise when I said,

"What on earth you two doing?"

I might have reveled a little bit in Malory's surprised squeak and Micas squawk. Malory immediately spun around and Mica, without her assistance, lost his balance and fell head first onto the carpeted floor with a _thump_.

There were so many questions to ask I wasn't sure where to even begin. Since when did these two know each other? Why isn't Mica using the front doors like a sane person? What the hell is Malory waring and what happened to the back of her shirt, it's got several rips in it. Should I be worried about that? And the main question of all, what where they doing here?!

Mica scrambled to his feet, grabbed the collar of my shirt in both hands, yanked me forward and said, "You're coming to the party dammit!"

Calmly, I grabbed his wrists and pulled his hands off of me. Mica let me, but he didn't back down, nor did he loose the determined look in his eyes.

Malory was crawling off the table she'd be on, and _seriously_ what was she waring? "Um, guys?" she said.

I held up a hand towards her, "One sec" I said, I needed to deal with the dreaded idiot in front of me first, "Mica, I appreciate whatever favor it is you think you're doing for me here, but seriously I _need_ to study."

Mica scoffed, "Why because of her?" he threw a thumb over his shoulder at Malory.

Who had nearly walked over to us, "Uh, _guys,_ " she said.

"Hold on," Mica said, "Natty, this is more than just a favor. You have been a colossal stress ball lately and honestly it's starting to freak me out."

"Mica I appreciate your concern, but I assure you that I am _fine._ "

"No see that right there! You only use your posh proper speaking talk with me when you're stressed out! You know that I don't give a shit about that stuff, and I know that deep down neither do you!"

" _Guys!"_ Malory said, putting herself right in between us to get our attention.

"What?!" we said at the same time.

Malory just pointed up at the second floor.

We both whipped our heads around, and standing right where I'd been studying was Sinclair, both his giant meaty hands fisted on the railings, and his livid black eyes scanning the bottom floor.

Malory started talking, "Is that the butler guy-woah!"

Mica and I each wrapped an arm around her and yanked her to the floor, effectively hiding all three of us behind a bookcase just as Sinclair's eyes came our way.

We all laid on our bellies side by side for a few seconds, as if speaking would somehow alert Sinclair to our location.

"Dammit Mica!" I hissed, "Now he knows I stopped studying."

" _Hey,_ " Mica bit back, "I hadn't started kidnapping you yet. You got yourself down here all on your own." He arched his back enough to peek at Sinclair over the shelves. "Shit, he's saying something into a walkie-talkie." Which meant that Sinclair had most likely already warned the library's security guards to be on the lookout for me. "Look," Mica said, coming back down, "you know how much Sinclair can't stand it when you and I pull a fast one on him," he said. "If you stay he bitches to your dad about how you took a break, if we leave, he keeps his mouth shut because he knows you'll do the same and you both stay out of trouble."

I stared at Mica hard for a few seconds, then I looked down to the girl that was still nestled between us. She tilted her head back as best she could to look up at me. I sighed, "What are you doing here?", because really, what _was_ Malory doing here?!

Somehow she shrugged despite the tiny space she had to move, "Mica said you needed help."

I…was not sure what to do with that information.

I snuck a glance up at Sinclair myself, his head was still shifting side to side but he was moving away from the railing and towards the staircase.

"Please tell me you two at least have a plan," I said.

"Umm-" Mica said.

"Dammit Mica."

"Oh leave me alone, it's my birthday. And besides," he poked Malory on top of the head, "that's what I brought her for. I'm sure you two geniuses can figure this out."

I looked again at Malory, " _Do_ you have a plan?"

"Not a one," she said.

"Great. Alright for starters lets at least-"

"HEY! You three!"

We all snapped our eyes forward to the end of the aisle where a security guard was coming straight towards us, his walkie-talkie already raised to his mouth.

"Run!" Mica said, jumping up.

Malory and I did the same, and the three of us turned from the guard, and immediately tried to lose him amongst the many books and shelves. This was definitely not how I'd envisioned my Saturday going, running around the library, hiding from my family's butler, with my insane best friend, and the annoying girl from school who was really starting confuse me.

...And seriously what was she waring?

* * *

.

.

.

An: Again, I am _soooo_ sorry for the obnoxiously long update. It doesn't help that I don't think this chapter is as entertaining as some of the others. It's mostly to introduce some story background, a bit of world building, and to set up for the next chapter, which I promise, will include the general hilarity you have all come to associate with Malory and Nathaniel being stuck together.

Anyways something I did want to bring up: in response to something I said last chapter a few people have mentioned that their schools labs where on second floors…you people live in a strange strange land.

Kidding.

Basically when I was in high school my chem teacher once explained to us how gas lines where a lot safer underground, cause you know if they break: bomb. But when I think about it I suppose not everyone is lucky enough to live in an earthquake hazard zone, where pipes freeze and often break every winter and where fall is filled with windstorms that howl and moan knocking down powerlines, and every summer we have at least two major fire warnings…spring is pretty good though. There was also that one time the pizza place did have a gas leak and… blew up…taking the barber shop and the dance studio with it…good news is it was at like four in the morning so nobody even got hurt. I live in magical place.

But more to the point with folks commenting on my brief spiel about high school architecture: you people read my authors notes?! Just…wow. I mean, this fanfic is pretty much an attempt to organize my rambling off the wall thought pattern into a coercive narrative, but in the authors notes I don't hold back. All the mind numbing nonsense that goes on in my head is written down simply because: meh why not, nobody's going to read this anyways. But you do! Personally when I read a fanfiction I only bother with the author's notes if it's a story I really really like. So…thankyou

…This does not mean the authors notes are going to start making any more sense. They're still just my ramblings, all I'm saying is I appreciate the efforts made to slog through them.

Oh btw, I know at the beginning of this story I mentioned that there would be some swearing, and that's definitely already happened. But I think there was a bit more in this chapter because of Mica. Was it too much? Honestly its just the way I envision him talking. In my head he's a teenage boy, with dreadlocks, who's fairly laid back, and he just doesn't care at all what other people think about him or what comes out of his mouth. And honestly I might be doing a Castiel story later (still debating on this) and I really can't see that red headed goofball going more than twenty minutes without some expletive coming out of his mouth. I know I could just use the 'S#*$%' method, but honestly I really hate that as, at least for me, it always takes me out of the story momentarily. Its like this little real world reminder, that oh yeah I'm reading something, and that's just not what you want to have happen when your engrossed in a story.

But if anyone's feeling uncomfortable with the level of cussing let me know. I can try to cut back on it. But I'll tell you this now, it's not going to go completely away. I haven't done anything that could be considered PG13 inappropriate yet, but that's based on the technical definition of what is allowed within PG13. Do you guys think I should knock this up to an M rating? I don't want to give the impression that there's gonna be like a bedroom scene or overly graphic violence, because there's not. But I definitely write this with the intent for my readers to have a bit of a mature outlook on the world. And by 'mature' I don't mean that you know where babies come from, I mean like, you understand that life can really beat the hell out of you sometimes, and that it does that to everyone. People are imperfect, and sometimes where not trying our best to be a better person. Sometimes we give up. Sometimes we fail. Part of being an adult is figuring that out, and figuring out how to get past those low points in life.

I don't know, I'm sick, and I think I'm rambling.

Anyways! Next chapter prepare for a giant game of Pac-man inside the library as the three stooges avoid Sinclair and the security guards, while they attempt to escape the library. We're going mission impossible on this guys!

As always, please have a magnificent day!


	7. Chapter 7

AN: Writers block? What writers block? There was no writers block, none at all. I was just…stalling for dramatic effect….

SORRY! I know this took for-fricken-ever and I am so sorry about that.

Anyways, story stuff: Thank you as always to those who reviewed, you guys are the best. I've been really pleasantly surprised by some of the well thought out responses I've been getting. I love fangirling like a complete dork as much as the next questionably sane individual, but I am trying to approach this story with a bit more level of story telling than just 'omg this boy is so hawt!'

So when you give me some great reviews explaining _why_ you liked the story it is incredibly appreciated.

That's not to say that I don't also enjoy the fangirl squealing reviews.

Actually funny (potentially embarrassing) anecdote: I've got this teddy bear named Captain Snuggles-lot who is the perfect size for squeezing, and was given to me by my father who works with planes so Snuggles is a pilot bear which makes him a Captain, so there. Anyways, he's pretty much turned into my review reading bear. Even though you guys always leave awesome reviews I still get super anxious every time I go to read them, and so I have to grab The Captain and squeeze him all the way through reading them. And when you guys start fangirling in your reviews, well, Captain gets some extra tight squeezes and me squealing/giggling in his ear. He's cool with it.

…I am completely sane, do not question me!

Moving on:

.

.

.

Three Blind Mice, See how they Run

.

"Run faster!"

"Left, _left!_...your other left."

"This way! _Oh crap_ , no not this way!"

"Duck under the tables!"

"Shit, they're in front of us too."

"Up here!"

"What, _no!_ Malory get off the shelves…Mica don't join her!"

"Come on Natty we'll lose them on the second floor!"

"I must be insane for agreeing to this."

"Ha, see it worked."

"Guard incoming…"

"You three brats are in so much troub-hey! Give that back!"

"Mwhahaha, fear me!"

"Malory put that down!"

"I know what I'm doing blondie- _gah!_ Nathaniel give it back!"

Malory made a lunge for the walkie-talkie in my outstretched hand, but it was a rather futile attempt seeing as my other hand was placed firmly on her shoulder, holding her back. Her small hands scrabbled at my bicep, trying to bend my arm, but she wasn't having much luck at that either.

"Get back here!" the walkie-talkie less guard yelled, coming around the corner.

Malory stopped trying to put me in a headlock, and again she, Mica, and I ran.

The man chased us around another corner, and suddenly we were in a sitting area alcove, with about nine irregularly shaped tables boxed in by bookshelves. Which meant the only way out was the direction we just came.

We'd cornered ourselves.

"Crap," Mica said.

Malory however, was not deterred. Without a moment's hesitation she grabbed both our sleeves and darted forward. The guard appeared just as we reached the far shelf.

"Hold it!" he yelled.

"You guys have played Pac-Man before right?" Malory whispered, as the guard began advancing.

"Yeah," Mica said, "but how does that-"

Malory darted away putting as many tables between her and the guard as possible, "waka waka waka!" she called imitating the sound Pac-Man makes.

"I said HOLD IT!" the guard yelled, moving in between the tables after her.

Mica and I had brief moment to glance at each other, and then we too skirted off between the tables, each going our own direction. The poor guard was momentarily confused, unable to decide which way to turn. He settled on lunging after Mica. But the dread-head darted around a table and then the two shuffled back and forth on either side of it. Until Malory ran up behind the guard and…yep she just yanked the poor man's pants down to his ankles. Honestly I am not even surprised she did that.

"HEY!" the man yelled. Turning to try and grab Malory. But instead he twisted himself up further and fell to the ground.

"What's going on here?!"

All our eyes snapped to the alcove entrance where another two guards had appeared. Their eyes darted over the four of us, finally landing on me.

"Get the blonde," the female one said. She and her partner began advancing on me from one side while the recently grounded guard (trying to yank up his pants) came at me from my other side. The three of them easily cornering me.

"Nathaniel!" I heard Malory call, but I couldn't spare her a glance.

Because just like in kendo, I saw my opening, and it presented itself in the slightly hunched guard still clutching at his pants. Hooking my ankle around one of the chair legs right next to me, I yanked the thing away from the table, pulling it in between me and the hobbling guard. He reached out with his free hand, ready to grab the back of the chair to push it aside, but before he could I twisted my hips, lifted my leg, recoiled, and kicked out. The chair went skidding right into the guard. He didn't fall over, but it staggered him. And before he could regain his balance, I was already running at him, stepping onto the chair, and vaulting over the man who suddenly yelled in fright and threw his arms over his head.

I landed several feet behind him right in the center of all the tables, with Malory and Mica next to me.

…

"Waka waka," Mica said.

"Okay" Malory said, "I admit that was pretty cool." The guards apparently thought so too, as they'd all frozen in place and where just staring at me.

Before the flabbergasted guards could regain their wits, we took off running again, slipping back in through the bookcases, and making as many turns as we could.

"But just so you know," Malory called to me as we ran, "you'd be really bad at Pac-Man." She was grinning.

"Great at leap frog though," Mica put in helpfully.

We lost the three guards in the myriad of shelves and books, darting around other library guests as inconspicuously as possible, and I could only hope that people assumed we were just three hyperactive kids who had never learned the walk-don't-run rule. First thing we had to do was find our way back down to the first floor. I knew the library layout thanks to my many visits, and I hurriedly led Mica and Malory towards a back corner that had a rarely used spiral staircase tucked away.

But just as I was about to round the last corner, the walkie-talkie in my pocket crackled to life, "I've got the west staircase covered," a voice said.

"Malory _no!"_ I hissed, skidding to a stop and catching the girl around the waist just before she darted past me and was spotted by a security guard. He was positioned right around the bookcase serving as our current cover.

Mica slid to a stop behind us, quietly trying to catch his breath. "So far your plan has been nothing but running," he whispered, "doesn't Sensei make us do that enough already?"

" _Shhhhh,"_ Malory and I hissed.

The two of us carefully peeked around the corner and sure enough there was the guard, unmoving and scanning his eyes over the many study tables between him and us. He was also rather _large_ and completely blocking the exit path we needed to take.

We'd cornered ourselves. We couldn't go back as there were already at least three security guards and Sinclair systematically moving up and down the shelves searching for us, and now we couldn't move forward without risking this guard seeing us.

"We could take him," Malory whispered.

I raised an eyebrow towards the girl huddled up beneath me, "It concerns me that you'd say that," I whispered back.

There was the sudden weight on my back of Mica leaning on me to look around the shelf as well. "No she might be right, I mean he's big but all we gotta do is knock him over and then he'll-."

"Whether or not we're capable is not the concern here," I said.

Malory shuffled beneath me, reaching for my pocket, "Give me the walkie-talkie," she said, "I've got the perfect idea for it!"

"Hold on," I said, fishing the device from my pocket, but holding it away from her, "I know what you want to do, but it will be more believable if Mica or I tell the guards to search another section seeing as we have male voices. I'm fairly certain that the woman we just saw is the only female on the security team."

Malory blinked at me once, and as if being hit with sudden realization she carefully said, "Um, yeah, that…that was my plan too…because that's the logical thing you would do with a walkie-talkie..." She really was a terrible liar.

I almost said something, but decided I didn't have time to decipher whatever strange concept she'd originally come up with.

I'd gathered how the security staff spoke with each other thanks to the random chatter we'd been receiving up till this point, and I was confident I could bluff this. Although just as I brought the device to my mouth I had a brief moment to wonder at just what the hell I thought I was doing? Mica and Malory come bursting into the Library and I just go along with all the ludicrousy brought in their wake? I was a rule follower. Castiel might claim I had no back bone because of it, but that couldn't be further from the truth. It took a lot to live up to my father's demands and to put up with Sinclair's attempts at bullying. And my life had a tendency to become a living hell whenever I strayed away from that system.

What was I expecting to get out of this, because so far it looked like it would be, at minimum, a pissed off Sinclair. Even if he never told my father about all this thanks to his own embarrassment, he'd still find a way of making me pay. Which was going to be hell enough to deal with already, so did I really want to aggravate the situation further?

Mica was looking around the corner keeping an eye on the guard, and Malory was looking up at me, her cheeks flushed from all the running, with the bright colorful outfit she was wearing adding to the effect.

…Damn these two.

I flipped the walkie-talkie to transmit, "They're in the east wing, third floor. I repeat, we've found them in the east wing, third floor," I pitched my voice low while speaking, and then we waited.

A moment later, "Copy! Mason, and Willis meet me by the grand staircase on the second floor, the rest of you, take east wing wall stairs and we'll box the brats in."

We all huddled with baited breath as the guard blocking our way turned around and went up the stairs. Then it was a rather simple walk down the staircase and off to the entrance doors. Well perhaps not simple, the hardest part was keeping the easy pace we'd all adopted. I kept expecting someone to jump out at us.

But within no time we were almost at the exit. And then we were walking past the reception table. And then we were passing the conference rooms, and then we-

"Are you sure we shouldn't be moving towards the west wing too?" a pair of guards suddenly emerged from one of the conference rooms. By the gods how many of them are there?

"Nah, we should stay here and watch the entrance, just in case. Besides it's a beautiful day wouldn't you rather be in the sun?" the second one said.

Mica, Malory and I never heard the first guards' response, as Mica quickly shoved us all into the nearest hiding place which happened to be the open doorway to conference room B. It was the room with the puppet show, evidenced by the tables and chairs all folded and to the side, and the giant painted box with curtains near the far wall. Thankfully the room was empty right now.

Mica frantically closed the door behind us while whispering, "Shit, I think they saw us."

I pinched the bridge of my nose, "Great, so now we're trapped in here."

"Well it was better than staying out there," Mica huffed.

"How is this better?" I asked, "at least out there we could have run!" What am I saying, I should be ending this whole charade, not encouraging this type of behavior.

"Well pardon me for thinking on my feet!" Mica said, throwing up his hands.

Malory suddenly popped in between us, "Hide now, argue later," she said.

There weren't a lot of hiding options in the room, just one in fact.

A few seconds later, we heard the door open.

"I could have sworn I saw them," a voice said.

"You're imagining things," another voice called, "Now come on, I wanna go stand in the sun."

"Could've sworn-" the first voice mumbled, but then the door shut and the room was silent.

Malory shuffled, bumping into Mica and practically leaning on my shoulder as she raised herself up to peak out of the puppet boxes curtains. "Okay they're gone," she said, before plopping back down, "But maybe we should hide here for a sec, that first guy sounds a bit more alert than his friend."

"I'm still failing to see how this is an improvement to our situation," I said, trying very hard not to be elbowed in the eye by Mica. The box was obviously not designed for three people, especially not when two of them were a pair of lanky teenage boys. The corner of a chest containing puppets was digging into my back, and Mica had to watch that his dreads didn't get caught in a hanging wind chime. With the three of us tangled up the way we were it was impossible not to be in each others' personal space.

Mica shrugged, putting his elbow in my other eye, "I don't mind it," he said. He then nearly elbowed me again as he put one hand against the box wall next to Malory and leaned over her, "So, come here often?" he said with what I'm sure was the cheesiest smile I've ever seen on him.

Malory raised her eyebrows in surprise. Then she crossed her arms, and said "Can't say that I do, and frankly I'm not seeing anything that's encouraging me to change that," she pointedly looked at him. There was a smirk playing at her lips, and I couldn't tell if she was just amusing Mica, or if she was actually _amused_ by him. I felt a stirring of irritation coiling in my stomach watching the two of them.

Mica continued to grin, "You want something better? Alright, can I get a band-aid, 'cause I just scraped my knee falling for you."

"And let me guess, you want me to kiss it better?"

"Beautiful and she knows my thoughts. Girl, you spend so much time on my mind, I should charge you rent."

"Right, so how do I get evicted?"

"But I've got free wi-fi, and I think there's a connection between you and me."

"Will you two stop it," I snapped, "this is not the time or place for ridiculous antics."

Malory rolled her eyes, "Relax blondie, where just amusing ourselves. Besides, it's not like we can go anywhere until those guards move."

Mica smirked, "Excuse my friend," he said, "He's a little embarrassed but he thinks you're cute and he wants your number-" Malory's eyes got very round, and I nearly choked.

"Mica, what on earth are you-"

"-so that he knows where he can get a hold of me tomorrow morning," Mica finished, talking right over me.

…

"Mica, you're an idiot," I dead panned

Mica rolled his eyes, "Psh, I'm awesome and you know it, and I'm pretty sure the beautiful angel here knows it," he wiggled his eyebrows in the most exaggerated way possible.

Malory covered her mouth, but we still heard her aborted giggle.

Mica grinned triumphantly, and I had to work very hard to keep a scowl off my face. Malory _was_ amused by this idiot. And since when did she giggle!? Malory is not a giggler, she laughs and smirks and grins triumphantly, but she does. Not. Giggle.

"You are both children," I said.

Malory rolled her eyes, and stuck her tongue out at me (which sort of proved my point).

"Don't worry Malory," Mica said, "he's just jealous. Nattys never been as smooth as me." The words where directed at Malory, but they were a clear challenge to me. "His pick-up lines are terrible," Mica finished with a grin.

Malory raised her eyebrows in shock, her head whipping towards me. " _You_ have pick-up lines?" she said, clearly disbelieving.

"I…it's not like I ever use them," I said, hating the defensive tone my voice took on.

"But you have some," Malory said, disbelief still evident.

Mica rolled his eyes, "Of course he does, he's a guy. But like I said, they're terrible, especially when next to me." Mica was pushing it, he wanted a challenge and he wanted Malory to judge. Damn this idiot when he gets bored.

Malory was still looking at me wide eyed and now a little expectant.

…

Fine.

"Do you have eleven protons? Because you are sodium fine," I said, looking at her.

Malory's mouth dropped immediately.

"…I…wha…. _that was awesome!_ " she said a huge grin splitting her face.

Micas eyes tightened briefly, and then his smooth guy act was back as he turned again to Malory, "Where you forged by Sauran because baby, you are precious."

Malory's shocked face snapped to him. And then she was grinning at him. "By the gods you're a nerd."

Mica shot me a smug look.

"Well at least I know all 21 letters of the alphabet," I said with feigned casualness.

"…Um, there a 26 blondie" Malory said

"Oh yeah, I always forget U.R.A.Q.T."

Both Malory hands shot up to cover her sudden grin.

"Are you Google," Mica cut in, "because you're everything I've been looking for."

"Did you event the airplane? Because you seem Wright for me."

"Kiss me if I'm wrong but dinosaurs still exist right?"

"How is it that I know so many digits of Pi, yet I know 0 digits of your phone number?"

"Seriously," Mica huffed at me, "you're using the math lines?"

"You can't spell calculus without us," I retorted.

Malory was in a full fit of suppressed giggles by this point. Both her hands covering her mouth to contain the sound, but her eyes were crinkled in delight and her shoulders shook with her joy. I could just imagine the way she was probably biting her lower lip under her palms to further hold in the noise. Okay, so maybe Malory _could be_ a giggler.

A sudden sound of the door opening made all three of us jump, and then we held very, very still.

"Okay children, the puppet show will be in here, no pushing. Marissa stop poking Tommy please. Everyone be sure to sit criss-cross-apple-sauce okay?"

The matronly sounding woman kept patiently instructing children, but said children quickly drowned out whatever else she was saying as they babbled and tumbled into the room. By the sound of it, there had to be at least thirty of them.

"Oh look!" the woman's voice called cheerfully, "The puppeteers are all ready to go!"

Mica jerked, realizing that a part of his leg had been visible to the rest of the room. _"Shit"_ he hissed.

Malory immediately smacked his arm, whispering _"_ _L_ _anguage!_ There are children present. _"_

There was a general hubbub of noise as the various children cascaded into the room and seated themselves around the booth.

"Quiet down children," the woman's voice called, "or the show will never start."

With that ominous possibility hanging over their heads the kids quickly quieted, and soon the room was silent with anticipation from those outside the box and dismay from those within.

"What do we do?" Mica hissed.

We all stared at each other. Malory picked up one of the puppets. She held it up chest high, a questioning look on her features practically screaming: 'Should we?'

Mica paused, then nodded, picked up another doll, a jester with two bells stitched to its hat, and before he could talk himself out of it, he thrust his hand in the doll and brought it up to the 'stage'.

"Ah ha ha, welcome, welcome children!" he said, in one of the voices he frequently used when reading his little sister story books. "We have a wonderful tale to share with you all today!"

There was a chorus of "Yays!" from our young audience.

"It is a tale of, um, great adventure, full of-" Mica glanced around at the various puppets and scenery in the box with us, "uh, full of dragons! And fairy's, and a great deal of magic."

"And princesses!" a little girls voice called. And then all the little girls where squealing their delight at this idea, while the boys made various 'bleg' noises.

"Uh, Yes!" Mica said, "Princesses and princes of course. Well then, um, once upon a time, in a land far far away there was a, um," he glanced at me and the vaguely Robin Hood resembling doll I'd just put on my hand. Mica grabbed my wrist and thrust my hand and doll up onto stage, "a great prince!" Mica finished.

…

Mica elbowed me.

"Oof- uh, yes! T-this is, um, prince…Berkley" I stuttered out.

Malory face palmed.

Mica looked at me. "Really?" he whispered, "You're using my dogs' name?"

I shrugged, in a what-do-you-want-from-me fashion, then elbowed him back to tell him to get on with the play.

"Well, uh, you see, Prince Berkley was on a quest! A quest of the greatest importance. A noble quest, a daring quest! Uh…" Mica was fumbling, he was looking at me as if that would somehow give him inspiration. "For Prince Berkley had been tasked by the king of the neighboring kingdom to…to"

" _Rescue a princess_?" I whispered at him, going for the first thing that came to mind.

"Rescue the princess!" Mica announced

Malory face palmed again.

This time instead of calls of praise from the kids there were only groans.

"That's boring," one child called out.

"Uh, for she had been kidnapped," Mica continued, "by a dragon!" He put his hand inside another puppet that reached across half his forearm. The 'dragon' reared up on stage, roaring at our young audience.

But again…more groaning.

"We've already heard this one," one of them said.

Malory huffed and rolled her eyes, "Kids are right, this is stupid," she whispered

"Play along," I hissed, shooting her, and the little maiden puppet she had on, a look.

She stuck her tongue out at me, but none the less:

"'Oh help me, help me,' a fair maiden cried" she said, bringing her doll up and not at all sounding terrified, but she did make her dolls tiny arms flutter around in 'panic'.

Mica elbowed me to keep going while letting out a rather convincing roar.

"Oh uh, 'I shall save thee fair maiden' Prince Berkley called. And he raised his mighty sword!"

Another child groaned. "Boring", there was a commencement of agreeing sounds.

Mica and I briefly 'battled', but we weren't exactly coordinated in our efforts. Which was really ironic considering how well he and I moved around each other during kendo. But in this we kept bumping elbows and swinging our puppets at the wrong time.

But eventually-

"And then Prince Berkley stabbed the terrible beast!" I said, while Mica let out a pained roar, "and was given the chance to rush past and rescue his princess"

Malory rolled her eyes, "Oh now shes _his_ princess huh," she whispered.

I ignored her, and Prince Berkley ran across the stage to were the fair maiden doll waited patiently to be rescued. Granted I suspect that if Malory were proficient at puppeteering she would have had the little dolls arms crossed and its foot tapping.

"Uh, my lady," I said, doing my best to make it look like Prince Berkley had kneeled before the maiden. "I am, uh, here to save you and I will take you back to your kingdom now. Princess…uh…"

I was drawing a blank. What the hell was a good princess name. I glanced at Malory, who looked about ready to hit something, and unfortunately, very _very_ unfortunately, I said the first name that came to mind, which just so happened to be-

"Princess Malory."

…if looks could kill.

Malorys mouth was moving but words weren't coming out. I could feel Mica behind me staring at the both of us. I'm not sure if our tiny audience could some how recognize the sudden tension in the booth but they were all silent as well.

"That's it," Malory finally hissed, and then much louder so that our audience could hear. "You know what, Princess Malory is _not_ some frilly little princess for you to just swoop in and save! Did she ask for your help? No! Did she ask you to fight the dragon? No! Did she ask for a rescue? NO!"

"But…just a few seconds ago she was saying 'save me'" I said, not sure if Malory was just acting, or if I should be trying to get her back on track.

"Well maybe it was part of some plan of hers I don't know! Point is she doesn't need your help!" Princess Malory started poking Prince Berkley in the chest, but Malory Jones was looking right at me.

"He was…just trying to help," I said, at a loss for anything else to say.

"Well she doesn't want it, she doesn't want anybody's help okay? She is perfectly fine on my own."

"So…what then? She's just going to spit in the face of anyone who offers a helping hand?" On stage Prince Berkley took a step towards Princess Malory. "Would it really be such a big deal if Prince Berkley were to help her?"

"Yes, because I'm fine!" Malory quickly pulled her hand and puppet away. "Uh, I mean, _P_ _rincess_ Malory doesn't want Berkleys help, because um-…"

I rolled my eyes, "Why? Why would she not want Berkleys help?"

She scoffed, "Uh maybe its because Princess Malory and Prince Berkley aren't friends."

"Well Prince Berkley can still be nice to Princess Malory," I said a little irritably.

"Malory doesn't need him to be nice! How many times does she have to say it!"

"Fine! Then he wont be nice, but it'd be _nice_ of Princess Malory if Prince Berkley could at least talk to her without getting his head ripped off."

"Well maybe Princess Malory just doesn't know how to talk to Prince Berkley because he's just so perfect and, and articulate, and that makes it really really difficult to talk to him."

"Berkley is _not_ perfect. Far from it. He is just trying to be a proper gentelm-"

"Proper proper proper, is that all Prince Berkley can say?"

"Whats wrong with propriety? All it is, is good manners, a show of respect for who you're speaking with."

"No it's a lie! Maybe not a real lie, like saying something untrue intentionally, but good manners are rarely ever true! They're just people pretending!"

"I don't think I like these morals," I heard the daycare staff member whisper, but whether Malory heard the woman or not she continued unimpeded:

"So you shouldn't pretend to be nice to people you don't like, and you shouldn't show your respect to someone who hasn't earned it!" she nearly shouted.

"Well who's to say Princess Malory hasn't earned it?!" I shot back.

"What?"

"Princess Malory, maybe Prince Berkley does respect her."

"…What?"

Malory was staring at me wide eyed, her puppet slightly forgotten and hanging limply, looking as if it were staring at Prince Berkley gobsmacked.

Before I could answer Malory suddenly came back to life, and so too did Princess Malory.

"But-but he _hates her!_ They never get along, and shes always frustrates him, and they had that huge fight, because shes annoying. Not that shes trying to be, honest. And she does feel bad about that fight because Princess Malory didn't mean to be so mean, and rude, she was just upset and confused and its really _really_ hard to talk to Prince Berkley, because she knows that shes always going to say the wrong thing. And he hates her which makes it even harder to say the right thing. And-"

"Prince Berkley doesn't hate her," I said firmly, cutting her off before she could go into another ramble.

"…he doesn't? But, I thought she annoyed the ever loving daylights out of him?"

"Well, yes that's true. But that doesn't mean he _hates_ her."

"Oh." There was a very long audible pause in which Malory just looked at me as though I'd told her that Santa Claus was, in actuality, real, and that I was one of his elves sent to spread the word. "Well….Princess Malory doesn't hate prince Berkley either," she finally said.

There was a chorus of awws from our tiny audience. I'd somewhat forgotten that they were there. Had they actually followed that strange diatribe? I don't think I even fully followed it. Mica was watching us, mouth slightly ajar, his own two puppets held to the side out of the way.

"Now kiss!" the squeak of a young girl called.

And now Mica was grinning.

Malorys attention snapped straight to me, eyes wide open.

The sound of the conference room door opening interrupted us, and then we heard what sounded like someone spewing their drink everywhere.

"Whats going on here!" a new voice shouted, "and whose playing with my puppets?!"

"Uh-oh," Mica said.

He, Malory, and I peeked over the lip of the stage, only to see a very angry puppeteer storming towards us, apparently not caring about the children that had to quickly scoot out of his way.

"Time to go," Malory said, jumping up. Mica and I quickly followed suit.

"What were you brats doing with my puppets!" the man shouts.

"You're mean," a little girl at his feet said.

There were sounds of agreement from the other kids.

Mica went left and Malory and I darted right. We circled around the outside edges of the room avoiding the puppeteer and the children. The puppeteer almost gave chase but then a juice box bounced off his head, and then a cookie, and soon the kids were pelting him with various snack foods and calling him a meanie as well as other childhood insults.

The matronly woman was trying to calm them all down, but I don't think she was having much effect. The last thing I heard before leaving the room was the puppeteer yelling "I hate children!"

Unfortunetly the commotion was enough to draw the attention of the two security guards that had stationed themselves out front. And one of them was already coming towards us and shouting into his walkie-talkie.

Dammit.

We'd been so close but now we had to run back into the library. I looked up and saw several guards on the second floor racing towards the grand staircase.

"Shit," Mica said, noticing the guards as well, "which way Nathaniel?"

"Uh, this way!" I said, breaking to the right, towards the receptionist desk. I had one last trick up my sleeve and I could only hope it panned out.

We rounded a corner and I saw what I was looking for: a maintenance door. The library staff almost never locked them. Or at least I'd never seen someone using a pair of keys on them despite the numerous times I'd seen janitors and other staff going in and out of them.

"Get inside that door," I called over my shoulder, just as a several guards jumped in front of us.

We sprinted past most of them, and Mica shoulder checked one that got directly in front of us, sending the man into the wall. Mica and I barely broke our stride. I reached the maintenance door first and wrenched it open. Mica dashed past me and inside, as one we turned to look back at Malory, who was maybe only fifteen paces away.

She was nearly there, I bunched my legs slightly, ready to dash in right behind her.

"Hold it!"

Seemingly out of nowhere, Sinclair came lunging out from behind a bookshelf, grabbing hold of Malorys forearm and planting his feet. Malory was wrenched to a stop, and for a heart pounding moment I thought the force of it might have dislocated her arm. She let out a surprised yelp, as Sinclair yanked her even closer. He was nearly two heads taller than her and his shoulders where at least three times as wide as Malorys own skinny frame. She pulled at her arm, but Sinclairs hand didn't even budge as he leaned in closer and hissed down at her,

"You are in so much trouble you little bra-OW!"

Malory suddenly kicked Sinclair in the shin and again tried to wrench her arm away. But Sinclair only tightened his hold gritting his teeth.

Mica was shouting something but the part of my brain that was supposed to process speech didn't seem to be working. I didn't even register that I was moving. But somehow I was suddenly in a dead sprint for Malory and Sinclair.

"That's not going to work girl," Sinclair grit out. "Now just hold still or-AAARGH!"

Malory bit down on the hand holding her, hard. Sinclair reared back, finally letting go of Malory. She jumped back as well, spitting out the blood in her mouth and flipping Sinclair the bird with both hands. "S _crew you_ , you oversized, lard-assed, cock-ameed, _woah_ -"

I didn't bother to stop when I reached her. Just twisted on one foot, tilted my shoulder down, wrapped an arm around Malorys middle, and threw her over my shoulder, all without breaking pace. I honestly couldn't say if she weighed anything or not, too much adrenaline was coursing through my veins to notice anything other than my zeroed in focus on Mica, looking shocked and holding the maintenance door open for us.

The second I crossed the threshold, Mica slammed the door shut. We were in a long cement tunnel that stretched out in front of us, with several pipes running along one wall and tiny box windows along the top of the other. About thirty feet away, there was an intersection and the tunnel split off into two unknown directions.

I stood there, panting slightly, as Mica jammed the door shut with several brooms and mops. He paused to give me a sideways glance, and asked "You alright?"

No not really. I just willfully charged towards Sinclair. That was nightmare fuel for anybody, but for me…

"Yeah, I'm alright," I said, controlling my erratic breathing as best I could.

The door was rattled a few times but the various cleaning supplies held.

I took a few more gasping breaths while Mica continued to give me that careful sideways look. Adrenaline was still pumping through my veins, making my heart hammer and my legs feel the twitchy need to keep moving. I was surprised by how out of breath I felt, sure I'd ran hard but it hadn't been that long of a sprint. And it wasn't like Malory was that heavy, heck my dufflebag weighed more when it had my full kendo gear and schoolwork in it.

Oh wait…speaking of Malory-

"Um…blondie?" I could feel her fidgeting.

Mica's eyes bounced to the girl at my shoulder, and his usual shit eating grin was back.

" _S_ _orry_ _,_ _"_ I blurted, quickly ducking down and setting Malory on her feet.

She held onto my shoulder just long enough to get her balance, then carefully snatched her hands back and held them at her chest.

And then we were just standing there…staring.

Mica took a few steps backward, "I'll just, uh, go see where these hallways lead." And then he disappeared around the corner and out of sight.

As if realizing the awkwardness at the same time Malory and I both snapped our eyes away, me with a completely unbelievable cough, Malory shuffling her feet a little.

"Um…" she started, drawing my eyes back to her, "Thanks…you know, for…that," she shrugged towards the door.

I nodded. I felt like I should say something in return, but I honestly I have no idea what. I opened my mouth, still had no idea, closed my mouth, and settled for another nod.

And there she goes fidgeting again. Honestly, that girl could not hold still.

I searched desperately for a conversation, preferably one that didn't involve the fact that I'd just manhandled the girl in front of me. 'Manhandled', oh Gods that sounds so wrong. But it really was to help her, which I did, and she'd thanked me so it was okay…I think.

My eyes bounced around her taking in the uncomfortable body language. Ugh, maybe I should apologize, or maybe I'm over-thinking this, or maybe she's just upset with this whole situation, or maybe she's just rubbing her arms like that because of her weird ruffley shirt.

And again…what _is_ she waring?!

And before I could stop myself I was asking, "Malory, I'm sorry but…what's with the outfit?"

She blinked, before looking down at herself, "Uuuuhh, fairy costume?" she said it like a question.

I just raised an eyebrow, waiting for the explanation.

She huffed, "It's just a dumb costume, you know, for kids." Her voice petered off into a mumble "There's s'posed to be wings."

"…Okay," I said, "Next question, why are you in a fairy costume?"

"…Cause."

I sighed. She was being difficult, but at the same time I suppose it wasn't really my business what she did. As long as she wasn't causing problems back at school, what did I care?

…

Okay but why did she say it was for kids?

 _No_ , no, not my business.

Before I could accidentally blurt out another unwelcome question, I calmly told her, "It's fine, you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

There was another long pause in the conversation, and I got the feeling we'd be that way until Mica returned. I leaned my back and my head against the concrete wall behind me, that adrenaline rush had come down, and in its wake was that odd combination of relaxed but alert.

"I volunteer at the children's hospital," Malory suddenly blurt out.

I snapped my head forward bringing my eyes down to the once again fidgeting girl in front of me. Malory in turn had her eyes to the side, avoiding looking at me all together.

"Or well, it's not volunteering so much," she said, "it's more like, assisting? No that makes it sound like I'm helping the nurses, its…my, um, _mom_ , she works there, part time, as part of the therapy. She's supposed to be a fairy godmother, and…and stuff. Anyways I sometimes go and help…so that's why I look like this," she finished, finally glancing at me.

I was honestly stunned. That's not the kind of thing I would expect out of most people and to find out that it was Malory Jones who was going above and beyond. It was like the cat doll. And the fact that she'd come to the library to help me. These where the actions of a kind person, a _very_ kind person. And that was not something I associated with Malory, but…lately she'd been turning my perception of her on its head.

Quickly I tried to think of something to say so that I wasn't outright starring at her, "That's…um, actually that's really noble of you," I said. And in all honesty it was.

Malory's whole posture snapped straight in shock, but then her eyes tightened and I could tell she was expecting my compliment to be some kind of trap. She opened her mouth to retort, or maybe to question me but I beat her to it.

"I'm serious Malory," I said, "that's really good of you. Most people wouldn't even volunteer as a normal person and you go all out and get dressed up for it."

She blinked.

"I…s'not that big a deal," she mumbled, "besides, it's not really volunteering, at least not this time, I was…kind of being grounded."

"You what?"

She shrugged, "I got in trouble, so Au- _Mom_ made me come with her to work as a punishment…or a lesson, I'm still not sure which."

"…Your mom considers hanging out with children to be a punishment?"

"I know right,"Malory said grinning, "and I actually like kids. But that's why I think that part might have been a lesson."

"Your mom sounds…like a very unique lady."

Malory nodded quickly, "Oh hell yes, last Tuesday I came home to eleven different cakes all extravagantly decorated, all over the apartment, and she was in the middle of making the twelfth. I still have no idea what she did with those things, but the twelfth one was for me and her, and she put a Lewis and Clark quote on it."

"…Why?"

"Why the cake or why the quote?"

"Both."

"Cake, I have no idea, as for the quote, I also have no idea, but it was the one Lewis wrote about being chased by a bear. Glean from that what you will."

"A unique woman indeed," I said. I tried to imagine my own mother doing anything like that. Heck just even baking, I was drawing a blank. I shook the thoughts from my head and focused back on Malory. "So, I'm guessing she's nice?"

Malory smiled a little, "Yeah, I guess she is."

"What was she upset with you for?" I asked, and then immediately wished I hadn't as Malory's face turned beat red.

"Uh-um," she stammered, "it wasn't really _upset_ upset, or I mean she wasn't upset. It was-she was more like, um, you know, I need to teach you a lesson, or no, not like that. Not a _mean_ teach a lesson, more like being an adult is about doing things we don't want to do!"

I didn't understand even half of her babbling, "Malory" I said.

"And she says I should apologize to you. I mean really, I think she just wants me to not be a jerk to people, she says that I am good, I'm just not good at knowing how to be good."

" _Malory_ _,_ _"_ I said.

"And really I didn't mean to spill paint on you!"

"MALORY!" I grabbed her shoulders, just hard enough to stop her shifting feet and wildly gesticulating hands. And then I registered what she'd said. "I get it, and…it's okay I know you didn't do the paint thing on purpose, you don't have to apologize for that."

"Oh…um, okay. It's just…"

"…Yes?"

"The paint things not what I was supposed to apologize for," she mumbled, her eyes watching her twiddling fingers.

I waited for her to elaborate, and she looked ready to but then she bit her lip and continued to avoid my eyes. "Would this have something to do with what you were saying in the puppet booth earlier?" I prompted carefully.

She nodded, still looking down.

"Does it also tie into the stuffed cat you threw at me?"

A wince, and again a nod.

"Okay, and…is all of this because of the fight we had?"

She took a deep breath, and nodded.

"Alright, well, apology accepted."

Her head snapped up and I could see the surprise in her rounded out eyes. "You…wait _really!?_ " she said, disbelief evident in her tone.

I nodded, "Yeah really" I said, I even smiled a little to reassure her.

"But…but I had a whole speech and everything!" she said, sounding honestly a little put out. "I worked on it the whole bus ride to your house, and, and _you_ were supposed to be all obstinate, and then I'd have to give you my reasoning and then you'd say something like, 'well be that as it may, your decisions were still rash and bla bla bla' and then I'd give you one of my counter arguments, and I came up with a whole bunch of those!"

And now I was smiling naturally, Malory was barely even paying attention to me, too caught up in her explanation of how her apology was so _obviously_ going to turn into a debate. Her arms where waving around again, and I still had a hand on one of her shoulders, the other having been knocked out of the way by her wild gesticulating, but she was heedless to it, and to me. It was all rather endearing. I don't know if it was the eccentricity of her emotions, my body still coming down off the adrenaline high, or stress from the whole situation in general, but I was suddenly laughing.

Malory stopped mid-sentence and looked at me like I'd grown a second head.

"You…you laughed" she said, as my chuckles died down.

I smirked, "Yes Malory, that _is_ what that noise is called," I said with only mild teasing.

"It's just, I don't think you've ever done that in front of me, in fact I know you haven't, at least not like that."

"Really?" I thought back to all of our interactions. I couldn't exactly remember all of them, but considering how most of Malory's and I's exchanges generally play out I can't say that I'm surprised. Still, it's been three months that I've known this girl and I see her for about half of my waking hours. Had I really not laughed once in front of her?

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm positive, I would have remembered that," she said.

That statement brought me up short.

"Bad news guys!" Micas voice called, as he came jogging around the corner. Both Malory and I snapped our heads towards him. "There's no-" Mica stopped. He looked at me, looked at my hand still on Malory's shoulder, then back to me with a raised eyebrow. Malory suddenly noticed my hand as well, and I felt her stiffen beneath it. Aw crap. I carefully, and deliberately took my hand away glaring at Mica and what the idiot thought was a knowing smirk.

"You were saying," I urged.

Mica quickly sobered, "Uh, yeah, there's a problem," he said. "There is a door out of here but it needs a key card to open it. The other hallway just leads to a storage room and the pump controls for that giant water fountain outside."

My earlier levity vanished at those words.

"Oh…oh boy," Malory mumbled, "there's no way to force the door open?"

Mica shook his head, "Tried it. Even if Natty and I went at it together that things not budging."

"Um, okay well what if we went back out, one of us could make a distraction while the others look for a keycard," she said.

She looked up at me hopefully, but I shook my head, "I have no idea where a keycard would be. I didn't even know they used them here."

Malory looked away biting her lip in thought, but I could see the way her shoulders slumped.

"What about one of these windows?" Mica said, "Malory you're small, you'd fit through with some wiggling. We could boost you up."

"Okay yeah, and then I'll come back and make some kind of distraction," she said, "Whats most likely to piss off that Sinclair guy and get him to come after me?"

Both Mica and I stiffened at that question.

"You know, on second thought, this is a terrible idea," Mica said.

"What? Didn't seem like he was that hard to rile. I could do it," Malory said defiantly.

"Yeah, I believe you. And that's actually the problem," Mica responded.

The two squabbled back and forth some more, but I was somewhat tuning them out.

The options before us were dismal. We couldn't go forward, obviously, which only left going back. But that scenario would not end well for anybody involved. The best we could do, or really the best I could do, is carry things out on our terms.

In all honesty it was actually quite obvious what needed to be done.

"I have to go back," I said.

"I don't think you understand how a distraction works Natty," Mica said, "The idea is for it to be _not_ the person the bad guys are looking for."

I shook my head, not really in the mood to start up our usual bantering. "I'll go speak with Sinclair" I said, calmly. I made sure to stand straight, and speak with the necessary assured tone. I noticed Malory scrutinizing me as I brought my shoulders back and level. "He doesn't really care about you two, if I go back, and agree to go straight home with him, he won't throw up any fuss. Things will quiet down and you two can just walk out the front door. Heck, Malory you can leave now, Mica's right we could easily boost you out one of these high windows. You would fit, as long as you don't mind crawling on your stomach for a moment."

They both stared at me, and then Mica (predictably) said, "You're a fucking idiot."

Just as Malory (not so predictably) said, "You can't do that!"

I sighed. "Yes I can, and I will. Its the most logical answer here, heck its the only logical answer. I'll tell Sinclair that I'm done running and that he should call off the guards. Trust me he'll do it."

Malory scoffed, "You realize that your entire plan amounts to 'gee, I hope everyone's amicable towards this'"

Mica nodded, "Couldn't of said it better myself."

I just looked at him, "Do you even know what 'amicable' means" I deadpanned.

Mica rolled his eyes, "Of course I do, Malory tell him what it means."

"Uh, its like being friendly and agreeable."

"Exactly, and Sinclair is anything but friendly which means that this plan of yours blows."

"Okay, we're getting a little off track here," I said. "It doesn't matter whether Sinclair likes it or not, the fact is this whole escape madness we've been up to is just silly, and he'll be happy to be done with it. I should never have let it get this far in the first place. So I'm going back. I'll talk with Sinclair. And you two can be gone in less than an hour. Malory, I'll see you at school on Monday. Mica, see you at Kendo."

* * *

.

.

.

AN: Dun-dun-duuunnn. No Nathaniel don't be a self sacrificing idiot! You're supposed to be a Ravenclaw not a Gryffindork!

What? What do you mean that's not how you spell Gryffindork? Of course it is. Hush, we Slytherins know best.

Actually in all seriousness I think Nathaniel would be a Hufflepuff. Sure he's intelligent but that's because he works his ass off for that intelligence. And one of the main reasons he puts up with so much crap from his father is because of family loyalty in my opinion. Castiels one too because deep down he's just a lovely goober. Lysander is clearly in Ravenclaw, and he and Luna are besties. Armin and Alexy are conniving connivers which puts them in Slytherin with Rosa. And Kentin is the only one in Gryffindork and I will even go as far as to call him a proper Gryffindor, because anybody who faces bullies on a day to day bases is a brave little bastard deserving of hugs.

You can bet your asses there's gonna be a Kentin story written into this monstrosity!

Any who, again I'm sorry this took so long to get out. The flow is honestly a little bit choppier then I would have liked but I'm not going to hold on to this thing and fret for another, oh god has it really been a year? Gosh I'm so sorry.

To all of (any of) you who are still reading this I give you full permission to bark at me if I ever take that long again.

Thankyou and have a magical day! Even you Gryffindorks ;)


End file.
